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Spinel
The Hipster’s Dream Gem
Spinel is perhaps the best kept secret in the jewelry world. So, embrace your inner hipster and impress your friends with your knowledge about the gem that is so cool they have probably never even heard about it.
These little sparklers get their name from the Latin word spinella, which means spine, because the cubic crystal structure of the stone evidently reminded early gemologists of a spine. I don’t exactly understand how a cube is reminiscent of a spine, but I guess you had to be there.
Spinel is one of those magical gems that comes in pretty much every color of the rainbow and even some in-between. The most common colors are red, blue, violet, and dark green. Plus, a bonus with spinel is that it has excellent color saturation and doesn’t have to be treated to enhance its color like many of the rubies and sapphires on the market. So if you like your colors saturated like an Instagram filter, spinel has you covered. These gems also polish to an impressive luster that rivals even a diamond, which is great if you can’t get enough of that showroom shine.
You can’t really write about spinel without discussing how this little gem has been called more names than Diddy. It all started because red spinel was often confused for ruby. So it has been called Balas ruby, ruby-spinel, Balas-spinel, spinel-ruby, pleonaste, and…
