How can you see the difference between a synthetic gem and a natural one?
What to look for depends on what type of gem stone you are talking about. To distinguish between synthetic and natural diamonds, you need to look at the inclusions. Even the best natural diamond will some other minerals grains inside of the stone. Synthetic diamonds, on the other hand, will not have mineral inclusions. Instead, they will have primarily gas-filled voids as inclusions. Inclusions will show the same pattern with the colored gemstones (rubies, sapphires, and emeralds) as they do for diamonds. However, colored gemstones have something else for which you can look. If you look at a synthetic colored gemstone under magnification, then you will often see that there are variations in the color of the stone. These variations will usually occur as curving bands. This reflects the way in which synthetic gems are created. The process grows them as conical or cylindrical boules. I can’t remember if natural stones will have banded color variations*, but if they do, the bands would be
