Does your alexandrite ever look muddy? Paging Jstar?

[Indylady]

I have a close friend with an alexandrite ring; it is a half carat oval. She says that it often looks muddy and doesn''t like wearing it. It does have a distinct color change and is beautiful in the right lighting conditions, but looks muddy and brownish other times. I am guessing this might happen when the stone is in mixed lighting situations, but I''m not sure.

My question is, do your alexandrites ever look murky, or confused? How about those with smaller alexandrites?

Jstarfireb, any thoughts?

 

[jstarfireb]

I wouldn''t say muddy, but there is a decent amount of silk in my alexandrite that makes it look a tad sleepy. It''s certainly not a "wow, look at the sparkle!" stone. Hopefully LovingDiamonds will chime in, as she has much more experience with alexandrites than I do.

 

[Indylady]

Thanks Jstar! I love your alexandrite lotus. It is such a beautiful piece.

Basically, what I think I''m trying to articulate is this: Does it ever look like a color other than green or pinkish?

Of course, I would also love to hear the opinions of other alexandrite owners! I do hope LD comes across this thread.

 

[jstarfireb]

It''s pretty much either green or purple. It''s a bluish green in daylight, a grassy green in fluorescent light, and purple in incandescent or candlelight. I haven''t seen any brownish tones if that''s what you mean by muddy. Of course my stone is tiny at under 1/3 carat, 4mm. Hope that helps!

 

[Arkteia]

Can you please post a picture of it?

 

[chrono]

I have a cc garnet which is different but it does look funky when the lighting condition is mixed. It''s a purplish red to blue green change but not of vivid saturation so you can imagine a mixture of these two colours is pretty odd and not always attractive. It looks better when showing only 1 colour.

 

[T L]

I have a one carat Brazilian alexandrite that goes from a greenish color to purple, but neither color has strong saturation, so it can be a little muddy. I''m not crazy about it.

 

[Indylady]

Thank you so much TL and Chrono! I think that you''ve both answered exactly what I was asking. There''s a small alexandrite on the sale page of D&J which I was thinking of purchasing, but I think I might just pass until I can find a larger one with better color change.

 

[LD]

Hello I'm here!

In answer to your question "no". Muddy is not a term I would use to generally describe Alex. There are times when the daylight is fading and there are lights on that the green/pink/purple mix but it doesn't look muddy just an odd colour! As has been mentioned, some Alex contains a lot of silk and this can give the impression of sleepiness or a sort of cloudy look. So, if it's got lots of silk and is normally a mid green in daylight, it will be a fairly dull flat opaque green colour rather than looking like a clear gem with lots of sparkle. Does that make sense? The second gemstone in the link below is a good example of one that has a lot of silk.

The only other thing I can think of is there is a variation of Alex that has a brown/green daylight colour (rather than the bottle green of an excellent Alex). I wonder if your friend's ring is that colourway? If so, I can see how that may looking muddy. It's not a desired colourway in Alex however but have a look here and you may find something similar. The 3.38ct trillion in the link below is quite brown looking but not really muddy. If you look at the 8.91ct Oval that DOES look muddy and silky.

http://www.multicolour.com/gallery/index.html

Just one last thought - if you friend sure this is a natural Alexandrite? Unfortunately it is grossly mis-sold and I've seen cc garnets, synthetics etc., all masquerading as Alex!

 

[Indylady]

Thank you LD! That makes a lot of sense; a quality alexandrite should hold its color fairly well in most situations. I hadn''t quite realized how silky alexandrites can be!

While the ideal color change seems to be from green to red, I''ve seen other types of color shifts on the market as well, including gems that change from brownish-green to a rosy flesh type color. I think my friend has one with a low saturation and more of a color shift than a real color change. I''ll have to ask her next time I see her to take a picture.

If it was synthetic, wouldn''t its color shift be better?

 

[chrono]

Browinish green to rosy flesh is basically the same as a green to red, except it looks that way due to lack of saturation (and undesirable undertones). A synthetic usually has perfect colour and 100% colour change.

 

[LD]

Ditto everything has Chrono said.

However, synthetic "Alexandrite" also sometimes has weird colourings that you would never see in a natural Alex ie. blue or is purple/red during the day and then green at night (the reverse of an Alex). So basically if it's not green in daylight to purple at night forget it! It's not an Alex.

Good quality Alex will be green to purple, almost an Amethyst colour (not red). Lower quality Alex will have a less desirable green (so green with either lots of brown or grey) and will change to a very pale pink sort of washed out flesh colour.

One of the major factors in pricing an Alex is the strength of colour change AND the percentage of colour change. Most people think that their Alex changes 100% - very very few Alex do. 85-95% is considered acceptable and good. Interestingly, the presence of silk can actually enhance the colour change so you get a great colour change but at the expense of clarity and a good looking gemstone!

BTW if a gem jumps across the colour spectrum wheel when it changes colour, it's a colour changer and not a shifter. A shifter is when it moves just to the next colour on the colour wheel. This is what makes Alex so unique as the jump is across the spectrum - so no real Alex will be a shifter! Does that make sense?

Hope that helps.