To grow the gem, Ms Boons started with a ruby “seed” taken from waste gemstone offcuts.
She placed the fragment into a platinum setting, like a ring, and then used a chemical agent called a “flux”. This lowers the temperature, which enables growth in the gem.
Unlike gems grown from scratch in a lab, which can be energy-intensive, or gems mined unsustainably from the ground, these gems grow in a furnace from pieces of waste gem material and take just days and only “five hours of energy” to be developed.
