January Birthstone-Garnets!

Photo by GIA.edu

January babies are blessed with garnet as their birthstone. Most people think of garnet as a brownish red color, however garnets come in almost every color of the rainbow!

Fun fact about garnets to start, they are rarely treated! This means that the stone you are wearing is most likely 100% natural, nothing has been done to enhance the stone except cutting and polishing…very few gems are rarely treated.

Garnets are unique in the way that they all share the same crystal structure, however their chemistry differs and that’s what gives you different colors and types. Think of it like cookies, chocolate chip cookies versus peanut butter cookies, both are cookies, but what’s put in them makes them taste different, but they’re still a cookie. There are more than twenty, yes twenty varieties of garnets, however in the gem market we only see about five different varieties.

Garnets are classified in gemology by either being aluminum or calcium, but in the gem market they are classified and sold by color rather than type. Aluminum garnets are orangey red to purplish red (pyrope, almandine, and spessartine). The calcium garnets are green, yellow, brown, and orange (uvarovite, andradite, and grossular). Many garnets are a mixture of two or more garnet species. And then there are color-change garnets (super cool!) these garnets can have a drastic color-change or a minimal color-change and it happens when the gem is exposed to either fluorescent or incandescent light.

The basics:

• Mohs Scale: 6.5-7.5

• Garnet is the gift for the 2nd wedding anniversary

• Birthstone for January

Fun Facts:

• Garnets have been adorned for thousands of years dating back to Ancient Egypt

• In the Middle Ages, garnet was the ideal choice of clergy and nobility

• Spiritually, garnet represents prosperity and abundance, brings passion, inspires love and devotion

• Rhodolite garnet is the most expensive variety of red garnet, and it is a dark purplish red to light reddish purple

• Tsavorite, one of the green varieties is an excellent alternative to emerald as its color can rival that of emerald without as many durability issues. However, finding larger sized stones can be difficult and there will be a premium price on those stones due to the rarity of them