Diamond Earring

No, and nothing in this store is. Every stone here is cubic zirconia — lab-made, genuinely brilliant, and a different material from both mined and lab-grown diamonds. Lab-grown diamonds are chemically diamond and priced like it; CZ is its own thing and priced like it too.

Yes. CZ sits at 8 to 8.5 on the Mohs scale — hard enough for daily wear, soft enough that facets soften over a few years of contact. Studs last longest because they're protected by the lobe; drops and dangles knock against things and show wear sooner.

What people read as clouding is usually skin oil and hand cream built up underneath the setting, and it cleans off completely. What doesn't come back is genuine surface scratching after years of wear. Cleaning fixes most complaints; time eventually wins.

The stone is fine. The plating isn't keen on chlorine, and soap film under a setting is what dulls the sparkle. Shower in them if you must, dry them properly, and take them off for the pool.

The stone is irrelevant to that — what matters is the metal touching the piercing. Ours is gold over solid sterling silver rather than nickel-heavy base metal, at 3.0 microns against an industry standard of 0.2, so the plating doesn't wear through to something you react to.

In a claw setting, usually — a jeweller can source a CZ and reset it, though the labour often costs more than the earring did. Bezel and pavé settings are harder. It's an argument for cleaning under settings occasionally, since loose claws are what let stones go in the first place.