The Long Journey of Gemstones.

Have you ever stopped to think about what's behind the high price of the gemstone in your favorite piece of jewelry?

The path a natural gem takes from mine to store is far from a straight line.

For millennia, the gem trade has been extremely secretive and shrouded in mystery. Even today, there are many steps in gem production that can be difficult for jewelers to trace. One of our main gemstone suppliers has given us the tools to change that — because we believe our customers deserve to know, and to feel good, about the origins of the materials used in the jewelry they buy.

At Priscilla Sayegh, it's of the utmost importance that information about our jewelry be transparent and clear. The more we learn along the way, the more we'll share with you — whether that knowledge comes from long-standing relationships with ethical suppliers, meeting and exceeding certification standards, or developing new product lines that value the planet and the people who work within it.

Mines

For select products, our gem suppliers keep records of where their mines are located. It's worth noting that Costa Rica has no gemstone mines, and precious metal mining is prohibited here. That's why we work with foreign suppliers to import our raw materials, including gemstones.

These mines stand out because they follow practices designed to have as little impact on the land as possible, all while safeguarding the well-being of their miners and neighboring communities. We've requested — and are in the process of gaining — access to mine registries and their geographic locations from our main suppliers.

Cutting Centers

Once a stone is extracted from the earth, it's sent to a cutting center, sometimes on the other side of the planet, to be shaped and hand-cut into the light-catching treasures we love working with. Some of our intermediary suppliers have, over the years, personally visited several of the cutting centers that produce the gems we buy from them. These visits have been part of a good-faith effort to ensure these facilities meet our standards, including proper safety protocols, fair wages, and no child labor. We always look for suppliers — as is the case with the one we already work with — who are also members of the Responsible Jewellery Council, which certifies business practices. Priscilla Sayegh only does business with companies that follow best practices for environmentally and socially responsible production.

Enhancing Attributes

Some gemstones come out of the ground needing only cutting and polishing to achieve a flawless finish. Others require a little (or a lot of) persuasion to achieve the characteristic color saturation that jewelers and jewelry owners recognize as the hallmark of that particular gemstone. These processes are known as "enhancements."

We've drawn on the American Gem Trade Association to walk you through some of the gemstone enhancement techniques:

Natural: No modification (or currently no known modification process).

Bleaching: The use of heat, light, and/or other agents to lighten or remove color from a gemstone.

Coating: The use of surface enhancements such as lacquering, enameling, inking, foiling, or sputtering to improve appearance, add color, or create other special effects.

Dyeing: Introducing dyes into a gemstone to give it new color, intensify existing color, or improve color uniformity.

Filling: Filling surface cavities or fissures with colorless glass, plastic, solidified borax, or similar substances. This process can improve durability and/or appearance, and/or add weight.

Heating: The use of heat to bring about the desired change in color, clarity, or other characteristics.

Heat and Pressure: The combined use of heat and pressure to bring about the desired change in color, clarity, and other characteristics.

Impregnation: Impregnating a porous gemstone with a colorless agent (usually plastic) to improve durability and appearance.

Lasering: The use of a laser and chemicals to reach and alter inclusions in gemstones, typically diamonds.

Oiling/Resin Infusion: Filling surface-reaching fractures with colorless oil, wax, resin, or other colorless substances (excluding glass or plastic) to improve the gemstone's appearance.

Irradiation: The use of neutrons, gamma rays, or beta particles (high-energy electrons) to alter a gemstone's color. Irradiation may be followed by a heating process.

U-Diffusion: The use of chemicals combined with high temperatures to produce artificial color change and/or inclusions that create asterism.

Waxing/Oiling: Impregnating an opaque, porous surface or translucent gemstones with colorless wax, paraffin, or oil to improve appearance.

It's worth noting that most of the Topaz we use has already undergone the Coating technique described above.

Congratulations! From here, we take care of importing these beautiful gems so they're ready to be set into a wearable work of art (jewelry) — and we can't wait to see our designs worn by the best models out there: you, our loyal customers!