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Tourmaline is a borosilicate stone and comes in the widest variety of colours of any gemstone (a rainbow range including colourless and black!). It is unique in its trigonal crystal...

Opal is the classic October birthstone which has now been joined by Tourmaline – the subject of my next blog. The name Opal is thought to be derived from the...

The September birthstone, Sapphire, has been sought after and cherished for millennia. It is classically the blue variety of corundum (Ruby being the red variety), although it actually occurs in...

The spinel is an intriguing gem stone that occurs in a variety of colours – from pale pink/lavender to red to dark blue/black. The red varieties have often been mistaken...

Sardonyx combines alternating layers of sard and onyx—two types of the mineral chalcedony—to create a zebra-striped gemstone with red/orange and white bands. Sard ranges in color from yellowish-red to reddish-brown,...

August is another month with multiple birthstones. So you get to choose your favourite – or all at once. This post will be about Peridot with two more to follow...

While over 2,000 natural minerals have been identified, fewer than 100 of them are used as gemstones and only 16 have achieved everyday importance. In alphabetical order these are beryl,...

Jadeite is really the rarest gemstone on earth. Unlike its namesake nephrite (common jade), which is affordable by anyone’s measure,  jadeite is rare and expensive. Lapidary suited stones are found...