Halo Moissanite Earrings 5mm White Gold

Halo Moissanite Earrings 5mm White Gold With a Ring of Small Stones

A halo design: a moissanite of 5mm in the centre, ringed by a border of small stones. That border makes the central stone look larger than it is, because your eye reads the whole as one stone. The setting is solid 925 sterling silver with white gold plating.

Product details

• Base material: solid 925 sterling silver

• Finish: white gold plating

• Stone: VVS D moissanite of 5mm with a halo of small stones

• Fitting: post and butterfly back

• Delivered with certificate in a Carpe Ice jewellery box

What a Halo Does That a Solitaire Does Not

The best known effect is optical: a ring of small stones around a large one makes the whole noticeably wider, so this earring reads on the ear as a solitaire of considerably more than 5mm. You are buying visible size without the price of one large stone. The second effect is less well known but just as important: the small stones sit at different angles from the central one, so they catch light at moments when the middle is briefly dark. In movement there is therefore always something sparkling.

What Moissanite Is

Moissanite is silicon carbide, a gemstone in its own right made in a laboratory because it barely occurs in nature. It is not cubic zirconia and not glass. On the Mohs hardness scale moissanite scores 9.25 against 8 to 8.5 for cubic zirconia, and that difference decides whether a stone still looks sharp after a year or has dulled through minute scratches on the facet edges.

More Fire Than Diamond

The dispersion of moissanite is 0.104 against 0.044 for diamond, more than double. Dispersion splits white light into colours, so that is exactly what causes the rainbow flashes in movement. The refractive index is also higher, around 2.65 against 2.42. On a halo you see that amplified, because more facets are in play.

The White Gold Plating

The setting is solid 925 sterling silver with white gold plating over it, which keeps the silver cool in colour and holds off tarnishing. It remains a finish, so take the earrings out before the pool, the shower and sport, and apply hairspray and fragrance before you put them in. If the layer wears, silver appears underneath and a jeweller can have them re-plated.

Cleaning

On a halo, grease and dust collect between the small stones and in the seam around the central one. That is where the sparkle dulls first, not on the stone itself. Lukewarm water, a drop of mild soap and a soft toothbrush along the underside will lift it away. Do not use an ultrasonic bath, because that is meant for solid metal without a finish.