Why We Show You Our Rejection Rate: Moissanite Shine Quality Transparency Report

Most jewelry retailers will tell you their stones are "carefully selected" or "rigorously inspected." Very few will tell you what percentage they actually reject — or why.

We think that's a problem. If our quality standards mean anything, they should be documentable and specific. So here is our transparency report: what we inspect, what we reject, and the numbers behind our process.

Why Transparency About Rejection Rate Matters

A retailer who never rejects stones either has no inspection process, or has inspection standards so low that nothing fails them. Neither is reassuring.

A meaningful rejection rate tells you three things:

The retailer is actually inspecting stones — not just forwarding supplier shipments
The inspection standards have teeth — they produce real decisions
The stones that do ship have cleared a documented threshold — not just a marketing claim

We disclose our rejection rate because we believe buyers deserve to know what stands between a supplier's warehouse and their finger. Here is what that process looks like in numbers.

Our Incoming Inspection Process

Every batch of moissanite stones arriving at Moissanite Shine goes through a structured six-point inspection before any stone is photographed, listed, or fulfilled. The inspection covers:

Cut grade verification — table %, depth %, crown and pavilion angles against our Excellent threshold
Optical performance testing — brilliance, fire, and scintillation under controlled lighting
Color grade confirmation — D–F colorless verification under neutral daylight-equivalent lighting
Clarity inspection — 10x loupe and microscope for inclusions, blemishes, polish marks
Symmetry and polish assessment — facet alignment, culet centering, girdle evenness
GRA certificate cross-verification — matching certificate characteristics to actual stone assessment

→ Full details: How Our Gemology Team Tests Moissanite Quality Before It Ships

Our Rejection Rate: The Numbers

Across our incoming shipments, our overall stone rejection rate runs between 8% and 15% per batch, depending on supplier and stone size category. Larger stones (2ct+) tend to have higher rejection rates due to the increased visibility of symmetry and polish defects at greater size.

The most common rejection reasons, in order of frequency:

Rejection Reason	% of Rejections
Cut grade below Excellent threshold	42%
Symmetry defects (misaligned facets, off-center culet)	28%
Color grade discrepancy vs. certificate	16%
Clarity issues (inclusions above VS1)	9%
Certificate mismatch or irregularity	5%

Cut quality accounts for the majority of our rejections — which reflects our position that cut is the single most important factor in a moissanite's visual performance. A stone can have excellent color and clarity and still be a poor performer if the cut geometry is wrong.

What Happens to Rejected Stones

Rejected stones are returned to the supplier with documented findings. We do not sell them as seconds, discounted inventory, or through any other channel. They leave our possession entirely.

We maintain rejection records by supplier and batch. Over time, this data informs our sourcing decisions: suppliers with consistently high rejection rates are deprioritized or removed from our supply chain, regardless of price competitiveness.

Why Most Retailers Don't Disclose This

The honest answer: because a high rejection rate implies that a meaningful percentage of stones from their suppliers would fail quality standards — which raises uncomfortable questions about what happens to those stones in supply chains without independent inspection.

We think the right response to that discomfort is transparency, not silence. Our rejection rate is evidence that our inspection process works — not evidence that our suppliers are bad. Every supply chain produces variation. The question is whether someone is catching it before it reaches the customer.

What This Means for Your Order

Every stone that ships from Moissanite Shine has cleared all six inspection checkpoints. It has been assessed by a member of our gemology team — not just forwarded from a supplier with a certificate attached.

This is what we mean when we say our stones are backed by our Lifetime Brilliance Guarantee. The guarantee is credible because the inspection behind it is real.

If you have questions about a specific stone's inspection record, contact our gemology team directly. We can provide specific assessment details for any stone in our current inventory.

Our Editorial Standards

This transparency report is part of our broader commitment to honest, evidence-based content at Moissanite Shine. Every buying guide, comparison article, and gemological explainer we publish is reviewed by our in-house team against documented standards — not written to maximize conversions.

→ Meet the team behind our content: Our Gemology Experts at Moissanite Shine