Have you ever wondered how so-called “5A” / “AAAAA” diamond-quality cubic zirconia stones measure up against actual genuine diamonds in an apples-to-apples comparison?

I mean, let's face it...value-wise, a $12 to $70 cubic zirconia stone made in a lab probably won't hold a candle to a similarly-sized-and-shaped $5,000 to $25,000 flawless and colorless natural diamond...will it?

One company at the forefront of the diamond-alternative revolution believes the output of its stone-manufacturing process absolutely does measure up favorably in every way (although they can’t guarantee that any ‘cubic zirconia’ stones sold anywhere will, too: Q: Why does your cubic zirconia look so much better than what I've seen elsewhere?)

Welcome to an exploration of the vaunted “diamond 4C’s” and how a CubicZirconia.com 5A diamond-quality cubic zirconia stone compares with a flawless, mined natural diamond.

Diamonds are universally measured against the “4C’s” standard. 

You may have heard of these factors: Cut, Color, Clarity, Carat Weight.


Let’s take those one at a time...

1) Cut - “Ideal cut” is the universally accepted standard for the best cut in gemstones. In short, that means achieving the optimum ratio of a stone's height to its depth, as well as the angles of its facets. This cut maximizes the reflection and refraction of light, thus making the stone more brilliant. Ideal cut diamonds are rare indeed, because the rough stones can’t all be ideal cut based on the material the gemstone cutter starts with.

On the other hand, CubicZirconia.com cuts all its 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia stones to be “ideal cut”. If it doesn’t cut perfectly, the company doesn’t rate it 5A and you’ll never find it for sale to consumers on the CubicZirconia.com website or set into the company’s finished jewelry. It’s actually easier to make them perfect than flawed!

2) Color - An ideal diamond should be perfectly colorless. Few actually are, and those colorless stones are some of the most prized and highly-priced by sellers.

Being man-made allows CubicZirconia.com to easily make all its 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia stones to be perfectly clear and colorless when sold as a diamond simulant.

As far as Color is concerned, taking that even a step further, clear cubic zirconia can also be manufactured with a tint in any color (making it an ideal simulant stone, not only of genuine clear diamonds, but genuine colored gemstones and birthstones as well).

3) Clarity - An ideal diamond should be perfectly clear or must have as few flaws, impurities or “inclusions” as possible.

Being man-made allows CubicZirconia.com to easily make all its 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia stones to be perfectly clear and flawless, without any internal impurities or “inclusions”. 

This contrasts greatly with the clarity of genuine diamonds where little flaws, impurities or inclusions are common to the greatest percentage of diamonds (truly flawless diamonds with little-to-no inclusions, perfectly clear inside, are the rarest and sold for the highest price).

4) Carat Weight - While there have been documented ideal cut flawless diamonds that are over 100 carats (such as the one Sotheby's put in the market in 2018), to the regular diamond buyer-- who isn’t selling a 30 room Scottish castle to afford a tiny sparkling pure carbon rock-- the most common carat weight range for a genuine diamond is 0.25 to 3.0 carats.

Whether 0.25 carats or 3.0 carats…the company claims that buying a stone for $12 to $70 from CubicZirconia.com will give you a product that compares in every important way positively with a similarly-sized-and-shaped diamond costing many hundreds of times that price.

Note: As far as weight is concerned, cubic zirconia is a slightly denser material than diamond. That means a CubicZirconia.com stone of “X” carats is actually 1.7 times as heavy as an identically-sized diamond of “X” carats. So to properly mimic diamonds and make explanations easy, cubic zirconia stones makers and sellers use a “diamond-carat equivalent” based on millimeters (you may have already heard about that, but the company CubicZirconia.com covers how that works in detail here).

The important thing to remember about carat weight is that with the naked eye no one can tell that of two things with the same length and width and height in millimeters, one of them weighs a few more fractions of a gram or an ounce. Since cubic zirconia is man-made, the maker has absolute control over how it’s formed and ultimately over the look and feel of the final product. 


You can read about some of these fabled “4C” factors of a perfect diamond-- the same factors CubicZirconia.com claims the company was able to recreate in a lab from a different material and sell profitably for less than $70-- in more detail here at this blog post.

Overall, if CubicZirconia.com is to be believed, the “Diamond versus 5A Cubic Zirconia” comparison can be summed up in the company’s long-standing company tagline: 

“If no one can TELL the difference, why PAY for the difference?”


Why indeed…

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