Smoky Quartz Crystal Bracelet

Smoky quartz is ordinary quartz - SiO₂, Mohs 7 - coloured brown to near-black. The colour comes from natural gamma radiation in the surrounding rock acting, over long ages, on traces of aluminium in the crystal. It is the same process that turns clear quartz smoky deep in granite.

The depth runs from pale champagne to a brown so dark it reads black, always translucent rather than opaque - held to the light, the stone has clarity inside it. The hardest-wearing range in the quartz family, equal to amethyst and clear quartz at Mohs 7.

Honest naming: some very dark "smoky quartz" on the market is clear quartz irradiated in a laboratory to force the colour. Natural smoky quartz keeps a warmer, less uniform brown than forced laboratory colour.

Asked often

Is the brown colour natural?
In natural smoky quartz the brown comes from gamma radiation in the host rock acting on the crystal over geological time. Some dark commercial material is laboratory-irradiated rather than naturally coloured.

Is it the same mineral as amethyst?
Yes - both are quartz, SiO₂. Amethyst is iron-and-radiation purple; smoky quartz is aluminium-and-radiation brown. Same crystal, different trace chemistry.

Why can I see into it?
Smoky quartz is translucent, not opaque - the colour is dissolved through clear crystal rather than sitting on the surface. Held to light, the interior shows.

How do I care for it?
Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth and dry. At Mohs 7 it is hard-wearing; strong prolonged sunlight can pale the brown, so rest it out of direct sun. 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. Hard-wearing at Mohs 7 - rest it out of prolonged strong sun, which can pale the brown.

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: Smoky quartz · brown quartz
• Composition: SiO₂
• Crystal system: Trigonal
• Hardness: Mohs 7
• Colour: Champagne to near-black · translucent
• Band: Durable elastic cord
• Origin: Brazil
• Care: Wipe with a soft cloth · rest out of strong sun

Smoky quartz is the national gemstone of Scotland, where it was cut from the granite of the Cairngorm mountains and called cairngorm; it was set into the hilts of dirks and the brooches of Highland dress, and into the great public collections of the nineteenth century. The brown stone of the mountains, worn as ornament.

Across the cultures that have worked quartz, the smoky variety was read as the grounded, earthbound member of the family - named here as what people believed. The clarity is in the stone itself; what is read into the smoke is the wearer’s.