Don't confuse sparkle with reflection.You may want to take along a piece of glass or quartz as reference. Instead, check for "sparkles." A real diamond will sparkle significantly more than an equivalently-size piece of glass or quartz.If you see rainbow reflections, you're either dealing with a low-quality diamond or a fake. Look straight down through the top of the diamond. A real diamond's reflections usually show up in various shades of gray. You won't be able to see the dot through a real diamond. If your stone is not a diamond, you will see a circular reflection in the stone. The dot test: Draw a small dot with a pen on a piece of white paper and place the stone over the center of the dot.(There are a few exceptions: if its cut is disproportionate, the print can still be visible through a real diamond.) A diamond would bend the light so sharply that you wouldn't be able to see the print. If you can read print through the stone, or even see distorted black smudges, then it probably isn't a diamond. The newspaper method: Turn the stone upside down and place it on a piece of newspaper.By taking a close look at the stone's refractivity, you should be able to tell whether it's the real thing or a fake. A stone's brilliance is difficult to alter in any way, even with an expert cut, because it's an inherent property of the stone. Stones like glass and quartz sparkle less because they have a lower refractive index. Diamonds sharply bend, or refract, the light that passes through them, resulting in their strikingly brilliant appearance. Lab-grown diamonds are "real" but they are not "natural". This ability to surpass the quality of "natural" diamonds has caused considerable concern among those in the mined diamond business who have lobbied heavily to have lab-grown diamonds distinguished from "natural diamonds". Gem-quality diamonds grown in a lab can be chemically, physically and optically identical (and sometimes superior) to naturally occurring ones. Note that lab-grown diamonds will also normally have no imperfections because they are also produced in carefully controlled environments.Don't use imperfections as the determining factor in whether your diamond is real or not. It is possible, however, that a real diamond will be flawless.A gem that is too perfect is more often than not a fake. That's because they are grown in sterile environments instead of produced by chance in the Earth's laboratory. Cubic zirconium (which should pass all of the other tests) usually doesn't have imperfections.These are both signs that you're dealing with a real, albeit imperfect, diamond. Look for small flecks of minerals, or very slight color changes. Mined diamonds usually have small naturally occurring imperfections, which are called "inclusions," that can be seen with a loupe. You can usually borrow one from the jewelry store. Use a jeweler's loupe to inspect the diamond.
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