Cubic Zirconia is a cubic form of zirconium oxide that is created in a laboratory, thus it is not a mineral. However, it was found in its natural state in 1937 by two German mineralogists, von Stackelberg and Chudoba, but has yet to be discovered since then. The two mineralogists thought so little of their discovery that they did not even give it a name; which is why it is still known by its scientific name Cubic Zirconia. It wasn’t until the 1970’s, however, that Soviet scientists learned how to grow CZ’s in the laboratory. To the untrained eye, Cubic Zirconia looks identical to a diamond, with fire and flashes of color. The overall effect is so similar that it can even fool a trained gemologist on occasion. Cubic Zirconia has a hardness of 8.5 on a Moh’s Hardness Scale, which is as close as you can get to a diamond at a hardness of 10.
Gypsy Dragon carries one of the largest lines of Cubi(CZ)irconia Beads in the U.S. which are imported from China.The standard lines of CZ Beads consist of 36 special cuts in 10 different colors. We are currently working on a deluxe line which consists of 4 exclusive colors as well as multiple luxurious cuts.
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