Magic Crystal 
 "Born in flames, yet impersonating cool beauty that cannot leave you cold” – these words are a concise description of people’s age-long admiration for crystal. Long ago, our ancestors were astonished when staring at the rainbow flashes emitted by a fragment of mountain crystal reflecting sun rays. It is no wonder that they credited the pure mineral with supernatural properties and believed that it could save them from bad powers. Motivated by their eternal fascination with the glitter of precious stones, people wanted to possess their own source of glaring rays. They invented crystal and endowed it with their pattern of beauty, purity and perfection. 
People Found an Equivalent Substitute for Genuine Stone 
 The high price and inaccessibility of mountain crystal prompted a search for ways to manufacture a man-made material with similar qualities. The clear glass technology was the right way to find a solution. Melting a mixture of the purest materials (quartz sand, soda, potash, minium and other admixtures) at high temperatures yielded crystal glass. 
Centuries-proven Quality 
 Preciosa is a world-known producer of cut stones of genuine Bohemian crystal. It is situated in Bohemia in the heart of Europe where glassmaking has been a traditional craft for hundreds of years. The company succeeded in continuing with the knowledge and skills of the previous generations of glassmakers. The company’s unique know-how made its way among the world’s leading suppliers of fashion jewelry stones, beads and many other products.
Crystal Glass 
 Preciosa’s own glassworks produce the finest crystal for the manufacturing of fashion jewellery components. The company has developed its own formulas for crystal glass melting as well as cutting and polishing technologies and other refining techniques. 
Colour Glass 
 ’Colour crystal’ – this frequently used phrase is seemingly contradictory yet the opposite is true. This phrase simply expresses the supreme quality of Bohemian glass made in Preciosa; glass with unmistakable brilliance, prefect purity and glaring bright colours. Most colours are indistinguishable from the colours of precious stones that gave the individual hues their names (for instance: topaz, sapphire, amethyst, etc.). 
Machine Cut
Preciosa benefits from more than a hundred-year-old tradition of the machine cutting of glass stones and beads. Unceasingly improved cutting and polishing technologies combined with the flawless optical properties of glass guarantee that every piece of crystal cut in Preciosa will display high brilliance, spark and decomposition of light into a rainbow spectrum.
Perfect Brilliance 
Supreme crystal quality is reflected in its extraordinary optical properties. Like color hues, the cut of many shapes sought inspiration and model in genuine gemstones. As a result, color hues were named after gemstones such as topaz, sapphire, aquamarine, emerald, or garnet. The cut of shaped-back stones also borrowed terminology from the jewellery branch: brilliant, pear, navette, etc.  The similarity of crystal stones and genuine gemstones is sometimes so exact that only true experts can tell the difference. 
Stone Cutting Geometry 
MC chaton (also chaton or rhinestone) is an essential and the most frequently applied stone in fashion jewelry. Its top surface contains 8 pentagonal facets and a centraregular octagon plate. The bottom part also consists of 8 facets whose position is slightly rotated towards the top facets and that taper together to form a tip. This design ensures extraordinary opticaproperties and has been tested by fashion jewelry producers’ many years of experience. The bottopart (it cannot be seen on a jewel) is used to set stones and is usually silver foiled - that pronouncedly enhances stone brilliance. The thin silver layer is protected with a top 
Foiling
Foiling means the application of a reflective metal layer onto the bottom of stones in order to attain maximum brilliance. Golden foiling – a silver reflective layer coated with protective varnish with a bronze pigment. It is used for most round and shaped stones. Silver foiling – a silver reflective layer coated with protective varnish with an aluminum pigment. It is usually used for rhinestones in AB crystal. Aluminum foiling – a mirror effect is created by applying an aluminum layer in vacuum. It is used for 3/4 balls, cubes and hot-fix roses.  Unfoiled – channels, cubes, beads and drops are supplied without a mirror layer.
Coatings  
A thin film of metals and their compounds is applied onto a selected glass surface by means of a special vacuum method during which metals, their oxides and salts endow products with a precious stone look and create an amazing spectrum of colourful and glittering effects.
Types of coatings:
Stones  The following types of coatings are applied to fashion jewelry stones and flat-back stones: Top decoration – this decoration obtained by coating in vacuum is applied onto the top part of the stones. Bottom decoration – a thin layer of this decoration is applied onto the bottom part of the stone to create an unusually impressive changeability of the colour spectrum, depending on the intensity and direction of light.
Beads and drops Two types of coatings are used with this assortment:
 Half-decoration - is a type of decoration obtained through a vacuum process. It is applied only on the bead part. The appearance of some decorations can vary substantially – in their color coating or metal effect – depending on an angle from which we look at a bead.  Full decoration –  this decoration is applied on smaller beads only; it covers the whole bead surface and creates a metal green look.
Matt/Frosted
A matt stone look is obtained by means of special chemicals. It is also called a frosted look. 
Color Finishes
Preciosa developed a special method of applying thin color coatings of a line of light color hues on a polished product surface. Even a true expert’s eye hardly recognizes that it is not looking at colour glass but at crystal with a flawlessly applied fine colour film. This technology is mainly used with cut beads, pendants and trimmings.
H.Y.T.Colours 
This unique collection of 15 original colours of fashion jewellery stones is manufactured by means of a special technology that was developed by Preciosa and that imparts wonderful rich, glaring hues on crystal stones. The unique properties of these stones include excellent brilliance, colourfastness, resistance during processing and environment-friendly production processes.