"Where are your real gemstones?"

I always feel intimidated whenever I take my car into the shop for work. I don't know anything about cars, and it would be SO easy for someone with bad intentions to tell me I need a new fibulator gasket and I would probably believe it. Likewise, I imagine that people coming into MY workplace not knowing the lingo feel equally intimidated. It's always frustrating when you don't know how to communicate what you want, so I'm gonna try to teach you a few tips.
People that work in the jewelry industry take key words literally. For example, if someone were to come into the store and say that they wanted a silver necklace, we would take them to see our collection of necklaces made out of silver. However, upon doing so we often learn that the customer meant "silver color" meaning white gold or platinum.
Other frequently misused terms are among the labels we have for gemstones or diamonds. Words like ,"Created, Simulated, Natural, or Genuine".
Believe it or not, created and simulated are not the same. Neither are natural or genuine.
Created gemstones are chemically the same as the genuine version, but they are engineered in the controlled environment of a lab. They don't have inclusions, their color is pristine and they're very appealing.
Simulated gemstones (or diamonds) LOOK the same as the genuine version, but are not chemically the same. Often, people hear the word "simulated" and take it to mean "fake" which is not necessarily true. For instance, a diamond stimulant could be a white sapphire or zircon. At the same time, a diamond stimulant could be ( and often is) cubic Zirconia (or CZ) which is in fact manufactured.
A Genuine anything is just like it sounds. Genuine. The real deal. You can expect that it will have been treated in some way to help preserve it from wear and tear or even change its original color, but those are merely Treatments. It was still made by mother nature.
Finally, the term I hear the least is "Natural" and this one makes me feel a little uneasy whenever I hear someone request it, because it's very specific. "Natural" implies that the stone may be faceted, but that's about all that was done to it after coming out of the ground. No color treatments, nothing. It is what it is. Whenever I hear someone for a natural anything, I'm pretty quick to ask a few questions to clarify if "natural " is what they actually mean.

Knowing a little of the lingo is good. It helps everyone understand one another better and cut down on the likelihood of a misunderstanding.
There you are:) a few words that will help you around the jewelry store.