Crash course on fake stones/misrepresentations
Because I have been too lazy to type this all up.
Quartz:
If your quartz has teeny air bubbles it’s glass.
If it’s got a fruit name it’s dyed. End of story. (strawberry, cherry, lemon, pineapple, blueberry) yes there may be some very rare exceptions-fire quartz being dubbed strawberry- but due to the rise in fakes with that name it’s generally called fire quartz now.
Aura quartz is a regular quartz that’s been bonded with another material. (man made)
Cinnabar Infused Quartz usually reconstituted and mixed together to make a red crystal.
Green quartz can be grown in a lab and anything that forrest green color is
Turquoise:
Magnesite and howlite look very very similar to turquoise when they’ve been dyed, magnesite will have very deep cracks in it though.
No there is no white turquoise.
You can do a uv test to see if it’s real
Amber
Often faked with Copal. They look nearly identical.
Amber will float in salt water-copal will not.
Irradiated/dyed stones:
Very vibrant colors!!
Irradiated: (they irradiate the crystals to get a deeper or more vibrant color)
deeply pigmented topaz or kunzite
dark (almost black) smokey quartz
very deep pink or red tourmaline
colored diamonds
some cultured pearls
vibrant yellow heliodor
Dyed:
Pearls
Agate
coral
other stones may be dyed as well, generally if it looks fake..it is.
Heat treated stones: (really not a bad thing but if you’re going for natural)
Amethyst-lighten color+remove brown
Citrine-heat treated amethyst.
Aquamarine-remove green
Ruby-clearer stone
Sapphire-clearer stone
Rainbow Cal-Silica
Nope, completely fake 100%
Literally just car paint layered with calcite and resin.
Citrine: (im so sorry)
Much of the citrine on the market is lab made.
If it’s lab made it’s usually amethyst that’s been heated until it changes color
The bottom of these stones will be white with more color at the tips.
srry
Lapis Lazuli:
High quality is vibrant blue, hard to come by, and very expensive.
Low quality howlite, jasper or sodalite is dyed blue, and passed off as lapis.
Acetone will remove the dye but damage the stone.
Obsidian:
The clear green obsidian you see all over ebay is slag glass.
Natural green obsidian has been found but it is opaque and is more gray than green.
there is red obsidian as well but again, it’s not a vibrant red and is more brick colored.
Wikipedia is not always right.
Goldstone:
it’s glass it’s legitimately just glass
Opalite:
also glass.
real opalite exists but it’s green and not commonly found
once again, don’t believe everything on wikipedia.
Bismuth:
Doesn’t naturally form in the crystals, lab made!!!
rlly pretty though
Hematite:
Not naturally magnetic!
Magnetic hematite is 100% man made!
I’ll add more as I come across them~
Jade:
Real jade is p. heavy! A way to tell if it is real is that it’ll be heavier than it looks.
Jade is faked with the following:
Serpentine “New Jade” or “Olive Jade”
Prehnite
Aventurine quartz
Grossular garnet “Transvaal jade”
Chrysoprase “Australian jade”
Malaysia Jade- dyed quartz that may be called by its color – Red Jade, Yellow Jade, Blue Jade
Opaque dolomite marble “Mountain Jade” (usually dyed)
Dragon vein agate:
Quench cracked, bleached, and dyed agate and some is quench cracked, and dyed glass.
Snowflake obsidian:
Being faked with a very low grade cheap dalmatian jasper.!
Snowflake will be gray while Dalmatian should have a lighter color
Hollow galena:
A lot of pieces have been proven to have been faked through sand blasting + similar techniques (but there may be real ones I’m not 100%)
Charoite:
Chinese Charoite doesn’t exist.
If it’s called that then it’s not real, real charoite isn’t banded and is more swirly.
Moldavite:
Very very commonly faked!!
Biggest giveaway is the ‘wet’ look a faked piece has due to the molding process
White moldavite doesn’t exist!!
Sunspar:
It’s really just yellow Labradorite, which isn’t a v rare gem
ALSO!
Andara Crystal
no such thing
massive scam
literally chunks of slag glass, worth like, .1% of what they are sold for
