Gemstones make gorgeous and meaningful personal adornments for a number of reasons, including their vibrant colors, spellbinding shine, natural origin, and long-lauded spiritual benefits. Once the exclusive property of royals and the rich, modern technology has brought gemstones within many people's reach. Pure, stunning, symbolic for special occasions, and believed by many to attract good fortune and protection, gemstone jewellery is beautiful, versatile, meaningful, and suits everybody.

There are currently no international industry standards for evaluating and grading gemstone jewellery, but four common characteristics of gemstones are typically taken into account when appraising their quality: color, carat weight, cut and clarity. Unlike diamonds, the quality of a gemstone's color will often be its most important attribute when determining its value. While transparency is a highly prized feature in diamonds, the opposite can often be said for gemstones. Generally, the richer and more evenly spread the ,color the higher the stone's worth. Like diamonds, gemstones follow the carat unit of weight, with one carat equal to 2 grams. This is determined more by the stone's density than its size, with heavier gemstones generally more valuable than lighter varieties (subject to their color, cut and clarity traits as well). Almost all gemstones on the market are professionally cut to enhance their natural sparkle. Gemstone cutters don't follow common cutting criteria like diamonds, but cut them according to their individual shape and properties to maximize their visual appeal and light performance. Given that gemstones form naturally in the earth, every gemstone in its natural state will contain some inclusions, such as mineral spots, cracks and tiny crevices. Such imperfections dictate a gemstone's clarity characteristics, and may or may not affect the stone's value depending on the type of stone it is and the severity of its inclusions.