Sapphire

The official birthstone for those born in September, the sapphire is a beautiful deep blue stone. However, while many people think blue is the ONLY color for a sapphire, that is very false. Sapphires also come in almost any other color. Rare, peach colored sapphires are called padparadscha. It is also a 9.0 on the Mohs scale- the second hardest element.

Star sapphires (or regular sapphires) usually only have 6 ray stars, but in some cases, there are twelves ray stars. Depending on how a sapphire is cut, it may or may not have a cat's eye effect. Some of the richer blue sapphires you see are likely heat treated- this is done to draw color from very pale gems and also removes tiny inclusions.

There are also lab grown sapphires. The stones are easily told apart from genuine gems because of their size and price- lab grown gems are often times very small.