Not everyone wants a diamond.
Some people want the green of an emerald, or a sapphire in a color nobody expects. All of it is possible — and we carry our own loose stones, so you can see the color in daylight before you commit to it.
Most gemstone guides are an alphabet, which is a lovely way to lay out a page and a poor way to choose a ring. Ours is ordered by what each stone can actually take.
What Mohs hardness is, and is not.
Mohs ranks scratch resistance from 1 to 10. It isn’t a scale — diamond at 10 is many times harder than sapphire at 9, not ten percent — and the gaps between the numbers get enormous toward the top.
The number to remember is 7. Ordinary household dust contains quartz, which sits at 7 — so anything softer than that is being very gently sanded every day it’s worn. That’s why the list below breaks where it does.
- 2A fingernail
- 5½A steel knife
- 7Household dust
- 9Sapphire
- 10Diamond
Hardness is only half the story. Toughness — whether a stone chips when it’s knocked — is a different property altogether, and it’s why emerald sits a tier lower than its number would suggest.
Wear it every day.
Hard enough and tough enough for a ring that never comes off. If this is the piece he or she will still be wearing in thirty years, choose from here.
Sapphire
Every color but red — blue, teal, peach, pink, yellow, colorless · September birthstone
The one we suggest most often, and never as a consolation prize. It's the hardest thing on earth after diamond, it comes in far more colors than most people realize, and it's been going into engagement rings for centuries.
Mohs9Ruby
Red, from pinkish through to deep pigeon-blood · July birthstone
The same mineral as sapphire — a ruby is simply corundum that came out red. Just as tough, and rarer than a blue sapphire at the very top of the color range, which you'll see in the price.
Mohs9Alexandrite
Green in daylight, red under lamplight · June birthstone
It really does change color as you walk between rooms, and it's a delight to show people. Natural material is extremely rare and priced that way; lab-created alexandrite does the same trick for a fraction of it.
Mohs8.5Spinel
Hot pink, red, gray, cobalt blue, lavender · August birthstone
The best value on this page, and our quiet favorite. It sat mislabeled as ruby in crown jewels for centuries, it's plenty durable, and hardly anyone asks for it — which is exactly why it's worth asking for.
Mohs8Topaz
Blue, colorless, and the peach-orange imperial · November birthstone
Hard, easy to find and inexpensive in blue. It does have perfect cleavage in one direction, so it likes a setting that protects the girdle rather than leaving corners out in the open.
Mohs8
Wear it often, with a little thought.
Lovely ring stones that just appreciate a protective setting — and taking the ring off for the gym and the washing-up.
Aquamarine
Pale sea-blue through to deeper blue-green · March birthstone
Beryl, like emerald, but usually without emerald's internal fractures — which makes it much the tougher of the two. Cool, clean, and available clear at sizes where a diamond would be well out of reach.
Mohs7.5–8Morganite
Peach through to soft pink
The same family again, in warm pink, and it sits beautifully against rose gold — which is most of why it took off. Worth knowing: the color is pale to start with, and heavy hand cream will dull the surface over the years, so it likes an occasional clean.
Mohs7.5–8Tourmaline
Green, pink, blue-green, and bi-color watermelon · October birthstone
The most saturated colors of anything here, including that famous neon Paraiba blue. Hardness is fine for a ring — it simply prefers not to be knocked, so we give it a little more metal to hide behind.
Mohs7–7.5Amethyst
Lilac through to deep purple · February birthstone
Quartz, so it's hard enough, affordable at almost any size, and available in a deep royal purple that photographs far better than it has any right to. It can pale a little after years of direct sunlight.
Mohs7Garnet
Deep red, but also orange, green and purple · January birthstone
Not one mineral but a whole family of them, which is why the color range surprises people. Ask to see the green tsavorite or the orange spessartite if you'd like something nobody will recognize.
Mohs6.5–7.5Emerald
Green, from spring through to deep forest · May birthstone
It scores well and still belongs in this tier. Nearly every emerald carries internal fractures, which makes it brittle rather than soft — it won't scratch easily, but it will chip. Almost all are oil-treated, so no ultrasonic cleaner, ever. Worth every bit of the care, with a bezel or protected corners.
Mohs7.5–8
Beautiful. Just not for every day.
We'll happily set any of these, and we'll say the same thing every time: not in a ring that never comes off. In a pendant, in earrings, or in a ring worn for occasions, they're extraordinary.
Tanzanite
Violet-blue, shifting toward purple · December birthstone
Found in one small corner of Tanzania and nowhere else on earth, which is a remarkable thing to be able to say about a stone this affordable. It's also soft and has cleavage, so a daily-wear ring is asking for trouble.
Mohs6–7Peridot
Olive through to bright lime green · August birthstone
An unusually pure green that never turns bluish. It's sensitive to acid and to sudden changes in temperature, which rules out most ultrasonic cleaning.
Mohs6.5–7Moonstone
Milky white with a blue sheen that floats · June birthstone
The blue shimmer drifts across the surface as the hand moves, and no photograph has ever really captured it. Soft, and it cleaves easily. Quite something in a pendant.
Mohs6–6.5Opal
Every color at once, over white, gray or black · October birthstone
Nothing else on earth does what an opal does. It also holds water in its structure, so it dislikes dry heat and hard knocks in equal measure. Bezel-set in a pendant, it'll outlive all of us.
Mohs5.5–6.5Turquoise
Sky blue through to green, often with dark veining · December birthstone
Porous enough that perfume, lotion and even skin oil will shift its color over time. That's either a flaw or the whole point, depending on how you feel about a stone that ages alongside the person wearing it.
Mohs5–6Pearl
White, cream, gray, black, and soft pinks · June birthstone
Organic rather than mineral, and the softest thing we set. A pearl ring is a ring for occasions — but a pearl is also the only thing on this page that was made by something alive, and that counts for a lot.
Mohs2.5–4.5
If it is never coming off, buy sapphire.
We’re asked for a single recommendation often enough that it’s worth writing down. For a ring worn every day in a color that isn’t diamond, the answer is nearly always sapphire — one grade below diamond on hardness, tough as well as hard, and available in teal, peach, pink, yellow and a dozen blues.
The stones that make people happiest over ten years are rarely the rarest ones. They’re the ones that still look exactly like they did on the first day.
The mounting does half the work.
A softer stone isn’t off the table at all — it just wants metal in the right places. A bezel or half-bezel takes the knocks that would otherwise land on a corner, heavier prongs hold better than fine ones, and a slightly lower profile keeps the stone out of doorframes.
We raise this during the drawings rather than after — it is one of the reasons the design stage has more than one round.
Still weighing it up?
If you’re not sure whether you want color at all, Choosing a Diamond covers the other route, and the Diamond Buying Guide explains the grading vocabulary in plain English. There’s no wrong answer here — come in and look at a few of both, and you’ll know.
Answered plainly.
Is a colored stone a compromise on an engagement ring?+
Only if you choose badly — which is what this page is here to prevent. A sapphire is one grade off diamond on hardness and has been in engagement rings for centuries. What is true is that most colored stones are softer than diamond, so if the ring is never coming off, pick from the first tier above and you'll be very happy.
What does Mohs hardness actually tell me?+
Scratch resistance, and only that. It's a ranking rather than a scale — diamond at 10 is many times harder than sapphire at 9, not ten percent — and it says nothing about toughness, which is whether a stone chips when it's knocked. Emerald is the classic example: hard, and still brittle.
Do you keep colored stones in stock too?+
We do, alongside our loose diamonds, and the same thing applies: we buy them ourselves rather than through a middleman, so there's no extra margin riding along. Our range is deepest in sapphire, and our network covers the rest — tell us the color you're after and we'll show you what's here and what we can bring in.
Are lab-created colored stones worth considering?+
Very much so, and we set them without any hand-wringing at all. A lab-created sapphire or ruby is chemically the same material with the same hardness, at a fraction of the price and with none of the sourcing questions. Where natural stones earn their premium is rarity and resale, which matters enormously to some people and not at all to others.
Which stones need a special setting?+
Anything below about 7 on the scale, anything with cleavage, and emerald regardless of its number. In practice that means a bezel or half-bezel rather than exposed corners, and slightly heavier prongs. We'll bring it up while we're still drawing, so it's never a surprise later.
How do I clean it?+
Warm water, a drop of plain dish soap and a soft brush covers almost everything in the first two tiers. No ultrasonic cleaner on emerald, opal, pearl, turquoise or moonstone — the heat and vibration are exactly what they can't take. And when in doubt, just bring it in and we'll do it for you. If you bought it here, that's always free. Questions: (281) 515-8180.
Bring us a color.
A photograph, a flower, the exact green of something you saw once. We'll show you what we have, find what we don't, and tell you honestly how it will live on a hand.