If you fancy giving your girl a fancy gift but cannot afford the splurge, you can count on other ways to gift her. If you cannot pay for a diamond, you can always the next best thing. Enter the Cubic zirconia, otherwise known as the CZ. This is a cubic crystalline form of zirconium dioxide. But in the retail shopping world, this simply means that while it looks and shines like a diamond to an untrained eye—it conveniently does not cost anywhere like the real thing. Its retail price and diamond-like quality is what gives the CZ its growing popularity and appeal.

It is also not as old as diamonds. It was discovered in the late 20th century and has grown to become the diamond’s largest competitor (in terms of sales and mining) since the Seventies. In its unaltered form, this gem is extracted from deposits of baddeleyite (the natural form of zirconium oxide) which is rare to find (but not as rare as a diamond).

Just how similar is your CZ to the luxurious diamond? Count on the different chemical properties to display their similarities. First off, it is a very dense material. It has what they term as a specific gravity which spans from 5.6 to 6, such a measurement is comparably 1.6 more than that of a regular diamond. Likewise, it is also considered to hard because it tips at 8 in the Mohs scale. That given weight puts it at a classification which is higher than the usual semi-precious natural gems. The CZ also has a higher dispersion rate than that of a diamond. A higher dispersion rate (ranging from 0.058-0.066) generally means that when a gem stone is cut, its prism will show more variety in fire, or simply, color. When you hold a CZ in the light, it sparkles in shades or yellow, greenish-yellow or light brown. When exposed however to long-wave ultraviolet light, it glows in white. The CZ has its weaknesses; it has no cleavage and due to its hardness, it can also be brittle.

Since its belated discovery, the mass production of the CZ has become full swing. Scientists have thought up of various fast ways to cut and design this gem stone which has become valuable because it also functions as a diamond substitute. These days, the CZ is molded and cut by laser and other optical techniques. The production has become so efficient that by the end of the Eighties, some 50 million carats (equivalent to 10 tonnes) of the CZ have been produced and sold.

And ever since, the CZ has been improved. These days, the CZ has been manufactured to look more and more like the diamond. Some of the pricier varieties are even dipped in what is called as the DLC (diamond-like carbon) in a chemical process called vapor deposition. This Amorphous Diamond coating will harden the CZ and make its luster closer to that of a real diamond.