Jewelry blog from Jewelrymall.com

This is the beginning of a series on colored gemstones. Often people want to buy jewelry of a particular color – but don’t know what stones are possible in that color. It is easy to find the primary color of gemstones – but what about gemstones of many colors? Also, what about less common gems? There are many many gemstones that are rarely talked about that may suit your purpose. So we will begin with purple gemstones.

Amethyst

The most common purple gem is amethyst. Amethyst as pictured above is a transparent purple quartz. It is commonly thought of as February’s birth stone and as such is very popular. As it is very affordable, most people stop here when thinking of purple colored jewelry with gems.

Jade

With jade being thought to be lucky, purple or lavender jade is worth considering. It is a fancy stone that is hard to miss. Jade is thought to be calming; lavender jade supposedly adds wisdom too. Hence, this would possibly be nice for someone under stress. Natural lavender or purple jade is very rare and as such most is dyed. Dyed jade will be less expensive.

Sugilite

Lesser known sugilite is a more earthy violet purple stone. Though very high quality stones allow some light to be seen through it, most stones don’t allow any light to pass. This stone was first found in Japan in 1944. It is most commonly used in southwestern US style jewelry and modern jewelry. It is very eye-catching as it is so unusual.

Other Purple Stones

Purple Flourite is a gorgeous purple stone, but it is usually striped. It is usually purple and clear stripes or purple, green and white stripes. Often it is referred to as rainbow flourite. There are many other stones, though most are not truly purple:

• blue-ish tones: purple tanzanite, sapphire, and iolite
• reddish tones: garnet, spinel, alexandrite

Often the color purple is associated with royalty, so maybe wearing one of these purple gems will help you feel more regal.

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