Although you have become suspicious about the authenticity of your diamond, you might not necessarily feel comfortable with some of the tests out there that direct you to mar your stone as a way to tell if it’s actually real. You would certainly be angry to discover that your stone is something other than a diamond, but what people don’t know won’t hurt them, right? You can still wear it even if it’s a fake, at least until you get your man to spring for something real. If this is your attitude about discovering the legitimacy of your diamond, then you definitely want a test that won’t destroy your stone. And while you’ve tried the sparkle test, you really can’t tell if the side is any less “sparkly” than the top. So if you want to know for sure if your diamond is the real deal or as fake as the “planet” Pluto, try the newspaper test.
This will work best with a loose diamond, but it is possible to perform if your setting has an open portion under the stone (you just may need a magnifying glass to see the results clearly. Start by laying a piece of newspaper on a hard, flat surface so that there are no wrinkles. Then turn on an overhead light. If you don’t have a newspaper handy, use some other text with small print (a magazine, for example). Lay the table of the diamond directly on the page and attempt to decipher the text through it. If you can see relatively clearly through the stone, there is a good chance you’re holding a fake in your hot little hands.
The reason behind this has to do with the structure of a diamond. If it’s real, it is not only going to be flawed, making reading through it improbable, but light will be unable to pass through it without being refracted, making it impossible to see through clearly. A cubic zirconium, glass, and plastic, on the other hand, will be almost completely clear and easy to read through, giving them away instantly. Of course, if your diamond is extremely shallow and has very few facets, you may be able to see through it a bit more easily, leading to inconclusive results. If this is the case, you may have to try other tests for authenticity or simply give in and go to a jeweler for an appraisal.
