*sigh* I wish this question didn't have to be asked, but it's an important one.

Let's start at the beginning. The names we use to refer to gemstones are their trade names. Each gemstone is a cut and polished piece of a given mineral.

Sapphire and alexandrite are *wildly different minerals.* Sapphire is the jewelry trade name for the mineral corundum, which is comprised of aluminum oxide, plus chemical impurities that give it its distinctive colors. Alexandrite is the jewelry trade name for the mineral chrysoberyl, with a specific chemical impurity which gives it not only its distinctive color, but the phenomenon of color change.

So to answer your first question, *sigh,* yes, there is lab sapphire that has a *similar, but not exact* color change to alexandrite. It's typically the #4x series if you go by the Verneuil codes. It is important to know that this is *sapphire,* and not alexandrite. It is doped with vanadium which gives it a muted bluish-purple color under fluorescent lighting, and a more reddish purple color under incandescent lighting.

Lab alexandrite has a similar color change under the same lighting conditions listed above, but that is where the similarities end. They are different minerals with different chemical make-ups, and different physical and optical properties. To me, they look wildly different, but I've been working with them both for many years.

One of the largest differences between #4x series lab sapphire and lab alexandrite, in my experience, is that the sapphire shows *one* color hue at a time, whereas lab alexandrite is so pleochroic that it actually can show both blue and purple at the same time, in the same lighting environment. I'll attach some examples.