The alcohol can cause colour transfer, dulling and discolouration.Įxplore precious and semi-precious gemstones at their best by browsing our collections today. Products containing alcohol also shouldn’t be used on treated stones, especially gems that have been dyed. Like soft porous stones, treated stones should be kept away from water. Despite their treated nature, they need just as much of a specialist touch as soft porous stones when cleaning and handling. Howlite and lapis are categorised as treated stones, with dye, oil, wax or heat used to shape the looks and qualities they are known and loved for. TreatedĪs the name suggests, treated gemstones have undergone some type of treatment to achieve their final colour and/or quality. Instead, a dry, soft jewellery cloth should be used for cleaning. With this, most soft porous gems shouldn’t be cleaned with, submerged in or exposed to any water at all to avoid stone discolouration or damage. Pearl, opal, emerald, amber, coral, onyx, agate and dolomite are all classed as soft porous, which means they are softer, more vulnerable to water damage and need special care to maintain their beauty. A select few fall into the soft porous category. Whilst most precious and semi-precious gemstones are hard and non-porous. Selected stones are particularly susceptible to damage when exposed to excessive heat, light or chemicals. Semi-precious stones include alexandrite, amethyst, aquamarine, topaz, garnet, peridot and rose quartz.ĭue to their varying hardness, some semi-precious stones need more specialist care and handling than others. As well as often being better quality and more valuable than some precious stones, semi-precious gems deliver exquisite colour, brilliance and beauty. Outside the Big Four, gemstones are classified as semi-precious, and there is a lot to love about this particular gem type. Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies all top the Mohs scale when measuring mineral hardness, making them durable, easy to care for, and able to last for generations. One thing that precious gemstones do have in common is their hardness. When we look, however, at how rare one gemstone is compared to another, there are many gemstones that are much rarer than the gemstones that are known as the ‘Big Four’…” The special circumstances that are required to create a gemstone, pressures, heat, and combinations of unique minerals, all come together to form a gem or gemstone. Whether it be Tanzanite from Africa or Rubies from Sri Lanka. This is a misconception, however.ĭespite their precious status, precious gemstones aren’t always the rarest or most valuable as Bellatory details: Known as the ‘Big Four’, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies are precious gemstones and are generally considered the most valuable and expensive. Out of the 300 gemstone varieties identified, only four are classed as precious. But what’s the difference between these gemstone types? Precious Gemstones are categorised into types as a result, with precious, semi-precious, soft porous and treated gems having their own characteristics and jewellery care rules. Tanzanite and iolite are more of a violet blue, while Paraiba tourmaline, apatite and fluorite tend to be blue-green.With some 300 varieties of gemstones available, the wonderful world of gemstone jewellery is a celebration of colour, beauty and uniqueness.Īs you’ll discover when exploring the many different gemstones, however, not all were created equal. There are a number of choices in the lighter blues, including topaz, zircon and aquamarine. Deeply saturated blue is also found in spinel and kyanite. This means that a red-orange gem can fall into the "orange" or "red" category and a blue-green stone would be in the "green" or "blue" category. Since there are hundreds of color variations in colored gems, we have organized this list around "base" colors or color families. So for those who want to know what their options are in particular colors, here is a list of gem types organized by color. Since color is indeed the most important factor for most people when it comes to buying loose gemstones, it only makes sense to start your search by shopping for gemstones by color.įinding gems by color can often be difficult since websites tend to organize their inventory around gem varieties rather than colors. But one thing we've learned in the colored gem business is that most customers are concerned above all with color, and are less concerned with gem variety, as long as the stone they buy is durable enough for their purpose. Many people purchase gems by type - for example, they want to buy a sapphire, a tourmaline or an amethyst.
Gemstones by Color: A Complete List of natural Colored Gemstones with Images and Details Click on any color-tile below to see all assosiated gemstones with images and details.
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