Malaya lovers, I have a question...

[OTL]

How do you accept the color change of malaya garnets under office fluorescent light?
I've bought three malaya garnets now, from BB, Welborn, and ebay. Even though they are beautiful outdoor and all well cut, sort of like a red wine color with a pink undertone or peachy pink. They all change to brownish color under fluorescent light,either brownish red or golden brown which I just don't like errrr. I'm giving up on malaya...cost 3 times return shipping now and nothing is a keeper.
Do you all accept the color change? Is that true to every malaya garnet?

 

[minousbijoux]

Extremely common in garnets; it is what you watch out for when buying them. No, not all Malayas do that, but they will be the more saturated ones that (likely) come with a higher price tag. Sorry, OTL

Note to anyone shopping for a garnet: Always ask if it "browns out, closes, or goes dark" in any light situations and make sure you specifically ask about fluorescent.

 

[OTL]

Extremely common in garnets; it is what you watch out for when buying them. No, not all Malayas do that, but they will be the more saturated ones that (likely) come with a higher price tag. Sorry, OTL

Note to anyone shopping for a garnet: Always ask if it "browns out, closes, or goes dark" in any light situations and make sure you specifically ask about fluorescent.

Thanks!! So the higher the saturation, the browner it change to? The one I bought from Welborn is a light peachy pink, and change to a medium golden color like a yellow zircon. I'd really love to see a pink malaya under fluorescent if anyone has photo!

 

[RTFrog]

Hi OTL,

Here's my Rose Malaya from Jeff White, haven't found a perfect setting for it yet so was able to take it out with shots in direct fluorescent, 5500k, incandescent, and direct/indirect daylight. Tried getting the color change for you. There's pepper flakes and most likely fingerprints in there... but instead of just showing off the facets went for the colors. I went through quite a few to find a color like this one.

 

[minousbijoux]

Sorry, OTL, I was saying just the opposite; the greater the saturation, the less likely it will brown out.

Sorry for the miscommunication.

 

[OTL]

Hi RTfrog

Thanks so much for the pictures! Quite a color change! I assume the last two pictures are under fluorescent light? Cauz I can see them turning to brownish pink.

 

[carmen1]

I could have written your post! I too purchased a malaya from weblorn and had it shipped to work, when I received it all I saw was brown, well coppery brown, but mostly brown, in my office with all flourescent lights. I put it right back in a box and returned it without a second thought. Then I contacted Barry and asked him about getting a malaya that didn't look brown, and he said he had one that looked orangy-pink most of the time, sent me a photo, I was sold. When I received it (again, at my office) I was so disappointed and could not figure out how it was even the same stone in the photo he sent, because in my office it was just brown. This time I decided to take it home and think on it, and lo and behold, when it got home it looked just like his photo. So I decided to keep it, but I asked him about the browning-out under flourescent lights and here was his response:

Most of these garnets could be marketed as color-change garnets. It’s due to chromium(Cr+3) in the structure. Some of the new types of lighting do weird and sometimes horrible things to colored gems. I’ve got one type of desk-top fluorescent light that we got at Walmart that doesn’t correspond to any other lighting at all when it comes to gem colors. I took a picture of one garnet with regular light hitting one side of the stone and the desktop light hitting the other and it shows two totally different colors. If I can find that picture, I’ll send it to you. It’s actually a pretty neat picture.

So anyhow, I decided to keep it since it is a lovely color at home and outside, just not for work. I haven't set it yet because I'm not sure if there is a way to minimize the coppery-brownish tone when I'm under flourescent lighting. Should I put it in rose gold? white gold? Any suggestions?

P.S. I felt really bad about returning the Weblorn stone after I realized it was a lighting issue, but she was so nice and accomodating I am certain I'll buy from her in the future!

 

[RTFrog]

Yup - sorry I didn't label each one, you are correct!

The other stone in the first picture is also a Malaya and once it's back from setting ill add some pictures.

 

[OTL]

I could have written your post! I too purchased a malaya from weblorn and had it shipped to work, when I received it all I saw was brown, well coppery brown, but mostly brown, in my office with all flourescent lights. I put it right back in a box and returned it without a second thought. Then I contacted Barry and asked him about getting a malaya that didn't look brown, and he said he had one that looked orangy-pink most of the time, sent me a photo, I was sold. When I received it (again, at my office) I was so disappointed and could not figure out how it was even the same stone in the photo he sent, because in my office it was just brown. This time I decided to take it home and think on it, and lo and behold, when it got home it looked just like his photo. So I decided to keep it, but I asked him about the browning-out under flourescent lights and here was his response:

Most of these garnets could be marketed as color-change garnets. It’s due to chromium(Cr+3) in the structure. Some of the new types of lighting do weird and sometimes horrible things to colored gems. I’ve got one type of desk-top fluorescent light that we got at Walmart that doesn’t correspond to any other lighting at all when it comes to gem colors. I took a picture of one garnet with regular light hitting one side of the stone and the desktop light hitting the other and it shows two totally different colors. If I can find that picture, I’ll send it to you. It’s actually a pretty neat picture.

So anyhow, I decided to keep it since it is a lovely color at home and outside, just not for work. I haven't set it yet because I'm not sure if there is a way to minimize the coppery-brownish tone when I'm under flourescent lighting. Should I put it in rose gold? white gold? Any suggestions?

P.S. I felt really bad about returning the Weblorn stone after I realized it was a lighting issue, but she was so nice and accomodating I am certain I'll buy from her in the future!

Exactly! I really understand what you said here! How could that be a same stone! But the BB malaya does look beautiful in the sun. My concern is since most of the time I will enjoy a stone is in the office, and more than 200 days in a year is cloudy or rainy here in my city, if I keep it, I will rarely see how pretty it really is. And that's just sad for a natural beautiful stone, it deserves better appreciation...But then I told myself, oh no, you gotta have at least one Malaya! So tired argue with myself

I don't think put in any color gold will help the brown out under fluo light, sorry. There's just too much brown to be balanced.