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VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystal Components
VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystal Components are honest to goodness lead crystals, just like SWAROVSKI® ELEMENTS and Preciosa. Here is our honest evaluation of the item using a scale of 1-10:
| Attribute | Score | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity | 10.0 | These are just as clear as any European crystal. |
| Cut/Polish | 8.5 | These are cut very well and are just as smooth as any other, there is some unpolished area around the girdle, but this is barely noticeable even with a magnifier. |
| Overall Sparkle | 7.5 - 9.0 | If you put them in a tray side by side with the SWAROVSKI® ELEMENTS, you will notice the extra sparkle that comes from the 14 facets on the SWAROVSKI® ELEMENTS. The VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystals only have 12 like a Preciosa. The difference is more pronounced in Crystal Clear, but as you go into medium and dark stones, this difference in sparkle becomes far less noticeable. |
| Colors | 9.0 | Almost all of the colors in the VALUE BRIGHT™ line match those colors with the same names in the Swarovski line up. There are a few exceptions, namely that the Hyacinth is more orange and closer to the Swarovski Sun color. Also, the Rose, Light Rose and Light Siam are slightly darker than their Swarovski namesakes. |
| AB (Full) | 7.5 | The Crystal (and some lighter colors) AB coating throws off more light than the plain stone, but the coating is not as delicate as the European stones so there is not as full a range of colors. The full coat is evenly applied all around the stone. |
| AB (Fade) | 10.0 | The color AB coated stones throw off more light than the plain stone, and are coated heavier on one side than the other. This technique of applying the coat is unique to VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystal Components. The net affect is that you can see more of the underlying color. |
| Hematite | 9.0 | The Hematite coating is slightly different in color, it’s a little more gold-gray than the typical gray Jet Hematite. |
| Price | 10.0 | VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystals are priced at approximately 50% of the European brands. |
VALUE BRIGHT™ Fade Coating
Many of you may have noticed that traditional AB coatings, although very brilliant and showy, are very heavy and mask the original color of the stone, particularly over medium and dark colors. Our VALUE BRIGHT™ Flat Back and Hot Fix Rhinestones use two different styles of AB coating. Our Crystal AB is coated in a traditional Full coating, but our other colors employ a 'Fade' technique. This technique permits the base color of the stone to show through the coating on half of the stone, but gives a heavier coating on the other half of the stone to provide the mirror/reflection effect. The coating is graduated from one side of the stone to the other. Here is a (crude) diagram of how the coating is applied.
We hope this helps you get a feel for the quality of our VALUE BRIGHT™ Crystals.