4.6cttw Moissanite Stud Earrings in 925 Sterling Silver

These are large studs. At 4.6cttw across the pair you are wearing roughly 2.3ct in each ear, which puts the stones in the range where a stud stops being a quiet detail and becomes the piece people notice first. Scale changes the mechanics too. A bigger stone has more depth behind the table, so it gathers light from a wider arc and holds its flash even when your head is turned away from the brightest part of the room.

The stones are full moissanite. Size is exactly where stone quality becomes visible, because a large stone gives any body colour more material to show through and gives the eye more surface to inspect. Moissanite is well suited to stones this big: a refractive index near 2.65, against diamond at 2.42, produces strong coloured fire rather than a flat white glare, and 9.25 on the Mohs scale means the broad flat table resists the scratches that would dull it.

Three finishes are offered and the metal does real work at this size. Silver keeps everything cool and lets the stones read as bright and colourless. Gold warms the setting and, by contrast, makes the stones look whiter than they do in silver. Rose gold is the softest of the three and takes some of the hard edge off a large stud. All three are built on 100 percent S925 sterling silver.

• Stone: full moissanite
• Total weight: 4.6cttw, approximately 2.3ct per ear
• Metal: 100 percent S925 sterling silver
• Finish: gold, silver or rose gold
• Style: single stone stud
• Sold as a matched pair