The beautiful color of a gemstone is its most defining characteristic, and many jewelers
consider it to be the most important evaluation criterion. When deciding upon gemstone color,
examine hue, tone, and saturation.
The most valuable gemstones are those that exhibit a pure color and only "slight" hues of
other colors in addition to their primary color, as all Blue Nile gemstones do. For example,
Blue Nile sapphires range in hue from "slightly purplish-blue" to "slightly
greenish-blue," pink sapphires always range from "pink" to "slightly
purplish-pink," and rubies range from "slightly orangish-red" to
"slightly purplish-red". With the exception of opals, variation in a gemstone's
hue will be called out in the gemstone details on the product detail page.
Tone represents the depth of color, ranging from colorless to black. Gemstone tone is described as
"light," "medium-light," "medium," "medium-dark,"
and "dark." Blue Nile offers gemstones with the most sought-after tones that
fall within the medium-light to medium-dark range. For all of our gemstone jewelry,
you'll find any tone variations are called out in the gemstone details.
Saturation, or color purity, refers to the degree to which the gem is free from brown or gray hues.
The most desirable gemstones, which show little gray or brown, are often described as having
"vivid" or "strong" color saturation. Generally, the levels of color saturation
will not be called out in the product details because the gemstones in our jewelry are
hand-selected for their vivid colors.
