Brown gemstones names, properties and meanings: A complete list
In this article we will talk about the meanings of the color brown as well as the most popular brown gemstones that are often used in jewelry, their properties, meanings, prices, famous jewelry works, pictures, and much more.
Meanings of brown
Brown is often hard to define. Sometimes it looks like beige, sometimes coffee. Its appearance is always confusing and even designers find it hard to really determine the true color.
In terms of meaning, brown is almost the opposite of blue and purple in some ways. Brown is often associated with nature, earthiness, and simplicity. It gives the impression of reliability, health and conservatism. On the other hand, it is also considered somewhat muted, but this can be remedied by using brighter colours.
Then how do we mix and match brown with other colors to complete a beautiful look? Well, eye-catching colours, such as bright red, orange, yellow and green, go well with brown. As you would expect, nature has already provided a display of brown with red, orange and yellow: a ready-made palette of warm tones.
Alternatively, light colors and browns can also produce a nice combination, such as white.
Brown Agate: affordable, powerful and amazing luster
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Agate is a type of chalcedony mineral, often mixed with opal and cryptocrystalline quartz in striated, banded masses, hardness 6.5-7 degrees, specific gravity 2.65, quite layered in color, translucent or opaque.
Agate is available in different colors, usually green, red, yellow, brown, white, etc. By pattern and impurities, it is classified as onyx, moss agate, castle agate and so on.
Agate is one of the seven treasures of Buddhism. It has been used as an amulet since ancient times, and is generally regarded as the stone of happiness. People believe that agate strengthens love, helps to improve the relationship between your lover and yourself, and therefore boosts harmony.
Price range: $1- $30 per carat.
Amber: one of the most interesting brown gemstones
Natural amber pendant in silver, $118, check it on Etsy.
Orange amber is one of the most interesting brown gemstones because it is not a crystal. It is fossilized resin, and in some pieces of amber a person may find a tiny insect or a leaf trapped for millions of years. This is actually desirable in an amber specimen.
The color of amber depends on the type of tree that created it. Often we see amber in yellow, yellow-brown, brown, reddish-brown, light green, etc., a variety of fascinating colors.
The way the value of amber is determined is complex. It is based on where the amber came from as well as its appearance. Amber can be clear or cloudy, then cloudy amber is further subdivided into fatty, bony or foamy. It is sometimes found washed up on a beach in locales such as the Baltic states, Russia, Myanmar, England and the Netherlands.
Amber is mostly made of carbon, with some hydrogen and oxygen. It is not hard, with a rating of 2 to 3 and has a resinous, greasy luster. It is not just valued for jewelry but by archaeologists because it is essentially a fossil.
The meaning of amber is clearing and healing. Ancients believed that it provided light for the dead as they traversed the underworld.
Amber is extremely heat sensitive and needs to be protected even from strong sunlight and should not be exposed to chemicals. It feels warm when it’s held and floats in salt water. It is sometimes found washed up on a beach.
Brown Citrine: bright colors, a crystal clear texture, and an affordable price
Origin 31 9kt yellow gold citrine wedge stud $239, check it on Farfetch.
Citrine is a popular gem in the market today, with bright colors, a crystal clear texture, and an affordable price. It has a unique warm tone that matches our skins.
Natural citrines are not very common in nature. Among all mining sites, Brazil is famous for producing the top notch ones.
Just as its vivid and bright color, citrine provides happiness by adjusting people’s emotions and calming them down. Citrine is also able to help the owners gain self-confidence and make better decisions, which are all sources of happiness.
Brown Diamond: the most common color variation of diamonds
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Natural diamonds come in a variety of colors such as blue, yellow, green, orange, pink, brown, gray and black, with brown being the most common color variation of natural diamonds.
Prior to the development of the Argyle mine in Australia in 1986, brown diamonds were only used for industrial purposes rather than as gemstones due to their weak ability to reflect light.
However, marketing strategies in the 1980s changed this situation and brown diamonds began to become a popular brown gemstone. This change was largely due to the dramatic increase in the supply of brown diamonds, with the Argyle mine producing 3.5 million carats, i.e. 7,000kg of diamonds per year, counting for about a third of the world’s overall natural diamonds. Moreover, 80% of the diamonds produced in Argyle are brown.
Price range: $2000- $5000 per carat. Brown diamonds, despite the relatively large production, are still really expensive brown gemstones.
Almandine Garnet: rich, intense, and enduring colors and symbolic importance
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At the most basic level, the garnet stone is a hard silicate crystal that comes in many colors, although red is by far the most common. Based on chemical compositions, there are six species of garnets that are recognized, including Andradite, Grossularite, Spessarite, Pyrope, Uvarovite and Almandine. Among then, almandine is often seen in red-orange, brown-red or pure red.
Today, with its rich, intense, and enduring colors and symbolic importance, garnet is a beautiful gemstone that hides many more unique qualities behind its pretty exterior.
Garnet birthstone symbolizes power and strength of the wearer, and is known for bringing peace, good health and prosperity in the lives of people and homes.
Brown Jade: most prized gem in its green variety but brown works too
Brown jade bracelet, $29, check it on Etsy.
Jade is an ornamental mineral known for its beautiful green hue. This gem can be formed from one of two minerals, nephrite and jadeite. Jade has been used for centuries in China, as it is thought to bring good fortune. It has a hardness of 6.0-7.0 on the Mohs scale of hardness while nephrite is slightly softer, ranging between 6.0-6.5.
Jade is most prized gem in its green variety, however, it can be also found in red, pink, black, white, brown, and purple. The gemstone has a luster that most would describe as “greasy,” which is not normally found in other gems.
This gemstone is common in China, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland and North America, normally speaking, in metamorphic rocks which are associated with subduction zones.
Although jade is used in a lot of jewelry, it is more commonly used in cultural and spiritual art pieces.
Jade is approximately worth over $3000.00 USD per ounce, making it far more valuable than gold.
Meanings of Jade
It has been long believed that jade provides its wearer with enhanced clarity, wisdom, and intuition. For this reason, jade pendants have long been worn as protective talismans.
Mahogany Obsidian: a rare variety, composed almost entirely of glass
Natural mahogany obsidian semi-precious gemstone point, $11, check them on Etsy.
Obsidian is an acidic vitreous volcanic rock, composed almost entirely of glass. Clearly glassy, with shell-shaped fractures.
Obsidian is usually black in colour, but brown, grey and small amounts of red, blue and green are also found. The color may be monochromatic, or streaked, or speckled.
The presence of hematite or iron oxide creates red and brown obsidian variants, called Mahogany Obsidian). This is a rare variety, generally with a mixture of red and black.
Obsidian is mostly found in volcanic areas, such as Hawaii, Japan, Java in Indonesia.
Opal: the “palette” of all gemstones
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Opal is one of the most beautiful and precious gems in the world and can be found in a variety of colours. Black, dark grey, blue, green and brown ones are called black opals, orange, orange-red and red ones are called fire opals, and of course there are always white opals.
Those that show bright colors on the darker embryonic hues are called Black Opal. They are mostly produced in New South Wales, Australia and is the most famous, rare and expensive variety of Opal. When we call him Black Opal we do not mean that it is completely black, just that it has a darker embryonic hue than the lighter ones, for example, black, dark grey, blue, green and brown.
Opal is the birthstone of October. In fact, throughout most of human history, opal has been considered the luckiest and most amazing gemstone thanks to its excellent capability to present all of colors on it own.
Sardonyx: holy, readily available and fairly inexpensive
Floral sardonyx shell cameo bracelet with 8 mm pink quartz beads, $298, check it on Amazon.
Sardonyx is believed to be one of the most holy stones, often appearing in breastplates of high priests and priestesses. High ranking roman soldiers even wore rings and pendants made of the gem, often carved with the image of Mars. These were worn as protective talismans during battle and times of national distress.
This unique gem can appear in colors anywhere from dark orange or red to black. It is formed through the layering of sard and onyx over thousands of years, from which it gets its unique name. This stone can appear with defined bands or even as a mix of different colors.
This fiery gemstone is known for its vitreous or “glass-like” luster and can be classified between hardnesses of 6.5-7.0 on the Mohs’ Scale.
Meanings of sardonyx: a stone of protection and strength
Sardonyxes have been used as a stone of protection and strength since ancient times, leading to it being associated with courage, happiness, and clear communication. It is also thought to bring stability to marriage and lasting happiness to those who don it.
Smoky Quartz: national stone of Scotland
Natalie Marie 9kt yellow gold hexagon smokey quartz ring, $375, check it on Farfetch.
Smoky Quartz is usually smoky gray, yellow, yellow-brown or brown in color. High quality Smoky Quartz are uniformed in color, pure and clear.
Smoky Quartz originated in Scotland, where it was widely used to decorate the colourful national costumes and became the de facto “national stone”. Although history and tradition are fascinating to gemmologists, Scotland is not actually the largest producer of smoky quartz.
Brazil, the United States, Switzerland, Ceylon and Spain have large deposits of smoky quartz, which is known to the world, particularly the Maine, New Hampshire and Colorado regions.
Tiger’s Eye: unique patterns, a sacred stone
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Tiger’s eye, is a gemstone with a cat’s eye effect. We are very familiar with yellow tiger’s eye. It is golden or yellowish brown in color, translucent or slightly translucent, with an adamantine luster and a silky, well-arranged pattern within the stone that looks like a tiger.
The yellow tiger’s eye is considered by the Indians to be a sacred stone, a symbol of prestige, to prevent depression, physical and mental illness and to inspire courage.
Brown Topaz: high transparency, really beautiful colors
Smoky topaz ring, $59, check it on Etsy.
Topaz is a November birthstone and a gemstone for the sixteenth anniversary of marriage. It symbolizes friendship and happiness.
The topaz is hard, has a high degree of transparency, a good reflective effect and really beautiful colors; there it has been popular for a long time.
The color is the most important criterion for evaluating such a precious stone, preferably to be intense, pure and uniformed. It is mainly caused by the iron or chromium in the crystal and different colors have different values.
A typical topaz is yellow or burgundy, other colors including blue, white, gray and green and transparent.
Currently we believe topaz can be worn as an amulet to eliminate sorrow and increase confidence; Wearing it as a pendant is said to help make us emotionally stable, and avoid nightmares.
Brown Tourmaline or Dravite: affordable, powerful, bright and vivid colors
Brown tourmaline faceted marquise 11×5.5mm, $22.23, check it on Etsy.
The tourmaline has bright and vivid colors like the rainbow, which gives people a happy and cheerful feeling, helps to expand their minds and horizons, and has a certain auxiliary treatment effect for curing mental illness such as depression.
The energy contained in this October birthstone has a calming effect, which helps people focus. In addition, those changeable colors inspire ideas and creativity, so that people could behave steadily, do their best, and make their careers flourish.
The international jewellery industry basically divides tourmalines according to the color. The more intense the color, the higher the value. Among them, brown tourmaline or Dravite is darker in color, rich in magnesium. Brown tourmalines are mostly produced in Sri Lanka, North America, Brazil and Australia. The English name for brown tourmaline comes from the Drewe region of Austria.
Conclusion on brown gemstones
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