Most silver jewellery in the under-£100 bracket is set with cubic zirconia. Ours is not. Here is the honest reasoning, including where CZ is actually the sensible choice.
They are not the same stone
Cubic zirconia is zirconium dioxide. Moissanite is silicon carbide. They look similar in a photograph and behave very differently on a hand over two years.
| Property | Moissanite | Cubic Zirconia |
|---|---|---|
| Hardness (Mohs) | 9.25 | 8.0–8.5 |
| Dispersion (fire) | 0.104 | 0.060 |
| Refractive index | 2.65 | 2.15–2.18 |
| Clouds with wear | No | Commonly, within 1–2 years |
The clouding problem
This is the one that matters. Cubic zirconia is soft enough that skin oils, soap residue and hand cream gradually build into a film, and it picks up fine surface scratches that scatter light.
The result is a stone that looks superb in month one and tired by month eighteen. Most people assume the piece is dirty, clean it, and find it never quite comes back.
Moissanite does not do this. At 9.25 on the Mohs scale it resists the micro-scratching, and it does not cloud.
The fire difference
Moissanite has roughly 70 per cent more dispersion than CZ — it throws noticeably more coloured flash. Under a shop light both sparkle; in ordinary daylight, at arm's length, moissanite keeps working and CZ tends to go flat.
Where cubic zirconia genuinely makes sense
We are not going to pretend CZ has no place. For a bold statement piece for one event, or a colour you will wear twice, CZ does the job for a fraction of the price and nobody will know from two feet away.
It is the right call for occasional wear. It is the wrong call for the piece you put on every morning — and that is what we set out to make.
What this costs us
Moissanite costs us several times what CZ would. We could put CZ in the same settings, sell at the same price and make considerably more per piece.
We do not, because the whole proposition falls apart if the stone dulls. A customer who buys once and never comes back is worth less than one who buys three times, and live-stream retail lives or dies on people coming back.
How to tell what you are being sold
Ask directly. A seller who will not name the stone is telling you something. Genuine moissanite is always described as moissanite, because it is a selling point — not something hidden behind vague words like “simulated diamond” or “diamond-quality crystal”.