2ct Moissanite Halo Ring
£185.82
Heritage Agate Studs
£38.90
Pearl Halo Necklace
£92.76
Forest Reverie Amber Earrings
£125.66
Four very different hardness levels from our collection
Why can you wear a moissanite ring to do the washing-up for a decade, while one evening in the wrong pouch can scratch a pearl? The answer is a 200-year-old scale invented by German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs in 1812 — and once you can read it, you'll know exactly how to treat every piece you own.
How the scale works
The Mohs scale ranks minerals from 1 to 10 by a simple rule: anything higher scratches anything lower. It's not evenly spaced — diamond at 10 is many times harder than sapphire at 9 — but as a practical "who scratches whom" guide, it's unbeatable.
Your jewellery on the scale
Mohs hardness — longer bar = harder to scratch
Amber · 2–2.5
Pearl · 2.5–4.5
Gold & silver (metals) · 2.5–3
Glass (for reference) · 5.5
Agate & quartz · 7
Cubic zirconia · 8–8.5
Sapphire & ruby · 9
Moissanite · 9.25–9.5
Diamond · 10
What this means in real life
Everyday dust contains quartz (hardness 7). That single fact explains most jewellery wear: anything softer than 7 — gold, silver, pearls, amber, glass — is slowly micro-scratched just by being wiped while dusty. It's why we recommend rinsing or breathing on metal before polishing, and why a 7+ stone like agate or moissanite stays glassy for years while a soft one dulls.
✓ Safe together
Stones of similar hardness — moissanite next to CZ, quartz next to agate — can share a compartment without harm.
✗ Keep apart
Anything 8+ (moissanite, CZ, sapphire) will scratch pearls, amber, gold and silver on contact. Soft pieces get their own pouch — always.
Hardness is not toughness
One honest nuance: hardness measures scratch resistance, not shatter resistance. Diamond is the hardest substance known yet can chip if struck on its cleavage plane; jade is only 6–7 but famously tough. And pearls, at a delicate 2.5–4.5, have survived centuries in royal collections — because their owners stored them properly. Softness isn't fragility; it just asks for the right habits: last on, first off, stored apart.
The takeaway
Check any stone's Mohs number before you buy, and you'll know its future: 7 and above shrugs off daily life; below 7 rewards a little care with decades of beauty. Every product page in our shop states the stone, so you can look any of them up on the chart above.