Cubic Zirconia Beads! Fabulously sparkly CZ beads! The pictures don't capture the lustre and the sparkle of these beads - and the pictures aren't too darn shoddy - if I do say so myself!

These beads are taking on mythic significance around here. A very odd series of coincidences led us to the special purchase of these beads. Suffice to say: "their time has come!"

And - not only do they look yummy to me, apparently the dog agrees - as in a classic case of "my-dog's-never-done-that-before," I came home to find that she had shredded the bag with the beads in! (Picture of bead-eating dog here, her true identity revealed by her Halloween costume.) (Don't worry - we're not selling beads that the dog ate.) ;-)

And check out our gem-cut cz's too!

Which leads us to the next obvious question: Just what is a cubic zirconia? Many think "simulated diamond" when they think Cubic Zirconia (cz). CZ's are used as simulated gemstones - and if you google you'll get a variety of opinions as to how closely they mimic diamonds, largely based on just exactly what the site is trying to sell you - cz's or diamonds. We think that these are lovely in their own right, much the same way the glass beads are.

CZ is harder than glass, (at about 8.5 on the Mohs scale - nowhere near diamond, but much harder than most natural gems) and we tried the scratch test, and yes, they do scratch glass but are not scratched by it. It is dense - specific gravity between 5.6 - 6.0; refractive index is high at 2.15 - 2.18 (B-G interval) and its luster is subadamantine (Really! I have very little idea what that means - just nod and make knowedgeable noises). It's dispersion is very high at 0.058 - 0.066, exceeding that of diamond (0.044). (It's sparklier than diamonds). Cubic zirconia has no cleavage (unlike some of the women that wear them) and exhibits a conchoidal fracture (if it chips, you will see semicircular arcs - think of a big chip out of the bottom of one of those old thick-bottomed Coke bottles). It is considered brittle. (Don't smack it on things.)

Under shortwave UV cubic zirconia typically luminesces a yellow, greenish yellow or "beige." Under longwave UV the effect is greatly diminished, with sometimes a whitish glow being seen.

Naturally occurring CZ's are not commercially significant, and are manufactured in a labratory as a gemstone. Really, really technical information is available here. (If the above wasn't technical enough for ya!)