Green Aventurine Crystal Bracelet

Green aventurine is quartzite - a rock of interlocked quartz grains - scattered through with plates of fuchsite, a chromium-bearing mica. The chromium gives the green; the mica plates give the sparkle. Mohs 6.5–7, in the quartz family’s range of wear.

The sparkle is aventurescence: light glancing off the flat mica plates suspended in the stone. It is quieter than the glitter of sunstone - a shimmer below the surface rather than a flash - and it lies differently in every bead.

Honest naming: aventurine is sometimes traded as "Indian jade." It is not jade. It is aventurine quartz, most of it mined in India, and the true name carries the better story.

Asked often

Is the colour natural?
Yes - the green is fuchsite, a chromium mica grown through the quartz, not a dye. The depth of green follows the amount of mica.

What makes the sparkle?
Aventurescence - light reflecting off flat mica plates inside the stone. It shows strongest in direct light, at a turn of the wrist.

Is this jade?
No. Green aventurine is sometimes sold as "Indian jade," but it is quartz with mica. We name it honestly - the stone needs no borrowed name.

How do I care for it?
Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth and dry. It is hard-wearing and stable in daylight. Keep the cord dry.

1. Worn on either wrist, over the hand, on a durable elastic cord.
2. Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth and dry.
3. Stable in daylight - no special handling beyond keeping the cord dry.

Many traditions rinse or air their stones from time to time; that is a matter of preference, and the rest is yours.

The elastic cord lasts longest kept dry - remove before swimming, bathing, or applying scent. Do not soak.

• Stone: Green aventurine · quartzite with fuchsite
• Composition: SiO₂ with chromium mica inclusions
• Hardness: Mohs 6.5–7
• Character: Aventurescent · pale sage to deep forest
• Treatment: None · undyed
• Band: Durable elastic cord
• Origin: India
• Care: Wipe with a soft cloth · keep the cord dry

The name is a seventeenth-century accident. In a Murano glasshouse, copper filings spilled into molten glass and set into a glittering material the Venetians called a ventura - by chance. The glass came first; when mineralogists later met a stone with the same internal sparkle, they named the stone after the glass.

So aventurine is the stone named after an imitation that preceded it - a story few materials can tell. In India, where most of it is mined, it has long been carved and worn; what the green has meant to those who carried it is theirs, and now yours.