DISCOVER YOUR BIRTHSTONE AND HAVE IT INCORPORATED INTO YOUR EVERYDAY JEWELRY
Regardless if you’re male or female, birthstones are often worn as jewelleries even during the ancient times. However, the gemstones of today are much more colorful, beautiful, and rare. Usually, the gemstones are set in a metallic background for ornamentation. Gemstones can be semi precious or precious. You can find some useful information about gemstones and birthstones for each month in this article.
January Birthstone - Garnet
This gemstone occurs in a wonderful spectrum of vibrant colors. Garnet offers hues of green, orange, pinkish orange, deeply purplish reds, and red except blue. If you were born in January, you should get a garnet jewelry as an addition to your get up.
In terms of durability and hardness on the Mohs hardness scale, garnet ranges from 6.5 to 7.5, due to the diversity of species. Garnets are more appropriate in earrings and necklaces, or fancy cocktail jewelry; though they can be worn every day in rings and bracelets with the appropriate amount of caution.
February Birthstone - Amethyst
February is considered as the month of love. The hue and tone of amethyst vary quite a bit, it can range primarily from a light pinkish violet to a deep purple. When heated, amethyst turns yellow-brown, yellow-orange, or dark-brownish. Brazilian amethyst is often heat-treated to create citrine, and ametrine.
Amethyst belongs to the quartz family, which is considered as the most valuable gemstone within the group and the expensive stones are much darker in color. With a hardness scale of 7, it has been popular for its durability for everyday usage in all styles of jewelry (rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings).
The February birthstone encourages the release of sorrow by stimulating the higher mind to receive spiritual power as a creation of the divine being, and opens one to the insights, wisdom, and guidance that flow from that power.
March Birthstone - Aquamarine
Pisces is the zodiac sign for the month of March and the birthstone is aquamarine. By wearing an aquamarine jewelry, you can be endowed with happiness, courage, and foresight. It can promote your youthful glow and increase your intelligence. This stone has been associated with fidelity, friendship, health, hope, and youth. During times of intense emotional and physical release, aquamarine helps keep one on their life purpose and path by promoting psychic and spiritual awareness.
Derived from its name, aquamarine came from the Latin words water and sea. It is the member of the beryl group that when faceted, will show clarity and brightness. The color of the aquamarine ranges from blue to blue-green, and can be pale to light-blue, dark-blue, green-blue, or blue-green. The bigger stones often have a darker tone which makes them more valuable. In fact, the more richly-colored the aquamarine, the higher its value. Lighter colors of aquamarine will become almost invisible if put under water.
In terms of durability and hardness on the Mohs hardness scale, it has a hardness of 7.5 to 8 which makes it a highly durable gemstone for all jewelry applications including daily-wear rings.
April Birthstone - Diamond
It was only in the 500 BC when diamond was discovered. This stone is very unique because it reflects white light into the seven colors of the rainbow and is the hardest ever known substance on earth. It is also composed of only one element and therefore it is considered the purest.
It is imperishable and durable. Two words that can describe this special kind of stone that came from the Latin word adamas that means unconquerable. With its hardness scale that reaches over 10, diamond can’t be easily broken unless some extreme pressure is applied on it that makes it as the hardest of all gemstones.
Diamonds have various sizes and colors like brown, yellow, black, green, pink. Although, the most popular would be the transparent or colorless one. The official color grading system for colorless to yellow and brown diamonds ranges from 'D' (completely colorless) to 'Z' (light-yellow). Diamonds graded D, E and F form the colorless range. The next group is the near colorless range which consists of G, H, I and J grades. Diamonds graded from K to Z have a faint to light yellow tint. Clarity is another characteristic taken into consideration with diamonds and are rated on a scale from internally flawless (IF), meaning that it has no inclusions, to heavily included (I3).
Diamond is symbol of strength and eternal love associated with beauty, commitments, bonding, courage, and royalty.May Birthstone - Emerald
For Gemini people, emerald is a talismanic stone and for the Taurus people, it is a planetary stone. Emerald's color varies from bluish green to green and slightly yellowish green, while the most desirable emerald is one that has a slightly bluish green hue in a medium dark tone and strong to vivid saturation.
Emeralds often have numerous inclusions and surface fissures, therefore are typically graded by eye and not the jeweler's loupe (10x magnification). If there are neither inclusions nor surface fissures visible to the naked eye, the emerald is considered flawless.
Emerald is known to be a stone of inspiration and patience, and brings unity and compassion, promotes friendship and harmony, and is particularly famous for encouraging contentment and loyalty as well as nurturing balance, harmony and cooperation. Emeralds are also fragile stones because of its porous characteristic but have a hardness scale of 7-8.
Although emerald is used in all applications of jewelry, from rings, bracelets to pendants and earrings but wearing it every day is something that requires a considerable amount of caution and one should avoid any knocks against hard surfaces or from harder gems such as ruby, sapphire and diamonds.
June Birthstone - Pearl
For many years, the pearl necklace has been the best piece of jewelry for brides. Many people believed that wearing pearl necklace during the wedding will help prevent women from crying and uphold marital bliss.
The finish of this top quality stone consisting of calcium carbonate primarily came from mollusks and is created under the depths of deep sea water. Nowadays majority of pearls on the market are a product of artificial cultivation. There are four major types of cultured pearls: Akoya, South Sea, Tahitian and Freshwater and their quality is evaluated based on luster, nacre thickness and quality, color, shape and size.
This gemstone comes in shades of white, black, silver, pink, and golden blue. The main body color of a pearl is always modified by translucent overtones such as rose, blue, green, or even purple. These stones though are highly sensitive to perspiration, perfume, and other liquid that contains high levels of acid.
July Birthstone - Ruby
By wearing a ruby jewelry, you can be endowed with good health, happiness, wisdom, and good luck. Ruby comes in beautiful shades of pink and fuchsia but is more popular due to its bloody red color.
The stone is widely regarded as one of the most esteemed gemstones thanks to its aesthetic appeal, exquisite shape, and exotic color. Ruby is well-known for its rarity, and hardness second only to diamond.
If diamond is the hardest, well, ruby is the most valuable gemstone of them all. With a hardness scale of 9, it is in fact the perfect choice for every class of jewelry.
August Birthstone - Peridot
This is a volcanic gem and available in yellow green shades. Peridot is believed to ward off evil, cleanse the mind of negativity and foster friendship.
Peridot's hardness ranges from 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs hardness index. It is considered to have a good wearability and is suitable for all types of fine jewelry and can safely be worn every day in pieces that are susceptible to heavy use such as rings and bracelets.
Peridot has become popular for those who are into the fashion world. With colors as bright as yellow green, brownish, kiwi green, olive green, this gemstone are considered wearable by those who are advocates with the color green.
September Birthstone - Sapphire
Sapphire is a great gift to give especially on 65th wedding anniversaries. Sapphire is widely known for its elegant blue hue. Although it also comes in colorless, black, purple, yellow, pink and green.
On the Mohs hardness scale, it ranks 9 and being the second hard gemstone makes it a great addition to any everyday fine jewelry piece.
October Birthstone - Opal
The name was derived from the Indian word meaning stone and is known for its floating fire within.
Colors may vary from gray, blue, white, green and pumpkin orange. There are three most common type of precious opal: White opal, Black opal, and Fire opal. Opal is a symbol of hope, purity, love, passion and truth.
Ranging from 5 to 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, it is noticeably softer than gemstones such as quartz and topaz leaving it vulnerable to scratches from other materials that you may encounter while wearing your opal jewelry.
November Birthstone - Citrine and Topaz
Citrine is a member of quartz family and its color varies from golden brown to the lightest of yellow. The glow of this gemstone is delightful enough to enlighten the mood of every occasion. A member of the quartz family, natural citrine is surprisingly rare. Today, most citrine gemstones result from heating Amethyst to an orangey yellow hue.
Citrine‘s sunny exuberance inspires joy, confidence, and creativity. Similar to Amethyst, with a hardness scale of 7, it has been popular for its durability for everyday usage in all styles of jewelry.
While topaz is available in different colors such as red, brown, pink, orange, yellow, sherry, and colorless. You have different choices when it comes to the color of November birthstone. Color ranges in hues of dark blue to intense aqua.
The popularity of this gemstone is due to its extravagant color, hardness and affordability. Topaz symbolizes affection and love is believed to offer strength and intelligence to the wearer.
On the Mohs hardness scale, Topaz ranks 8 and this makes it a great addition to any everyday fine jewelry piece.
December Birthstone - Tanzanite and Turquoise
Tanzanite is December’s birthstone. Others say that turquoise is the birthstone but tanzanite is now the official stone of December according to the American Gem Trade Association. Tanzanite can be found in colors that range from royal blue to indigo and violetish purple. The cool blues and purples of tanzanite symbolize calm and the ability to soothe.
Tanzanite shares many of turquoise's healing powers and traits. It has been known to strengthen the immune system, detoxify the blood, and improve vitality.
Tanzanite harness ranges from 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale, and can be worn in all types of jewelry with the appropriate care.
Turquoise with its calming and rejuvenating shade has often been associated with the sky and water. Blue has also been the color that symbolizes royalty and tranquility. These are one of the few hundred reasons why it is not hard to love turquoise. To own jewelry made of turquoise is like looking at the open sea.
Turquoise can be mined all over the world. They have it in India, China, and US. One of the finest and most respected kinds of turquoise is the Persian turquoise. Turquoise is formed when percolation of water occurs inside rocks containing aluminum, copper, and other minerals found within the depths of the earth. As chemical reaction occurs, turquoise is produced. This simplified explanation for the entire process happens for millions of years and happens in suitable conditions only. Oftentimes, the climate and temperature both belonging to extremes are factors that affect molding of this gemstone.
When used for jewelry making, the hardness that makers require must be within the Mohs scale of 5-6. Other than that, they treat it. A lot of turquoise gemstones are either enhanced or treated. It is seldom that you find a turquoise that is all natural. But if you do, the price would not be less extravagant.
So there you have it, the twelve gemstones and birthstones for each month. Now that you have learned more about your birthstone, get yourself a nice piece of fine jewelry matching your zodiac sign and add it to your everyday wear.