Tourmaline - Is considered a de-stresser and promotes sound sleep.

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by: JAMillard
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Word Count: 450
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 Time: 10:01 PM
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A somewhat new gem, tourmaline gets its name from the Singhalese, turamali, which means colored stone. It wasn't recognized until the early 1700's. Tourmaline comes in a variation of beautiful and vivid colors, and is a durable gemstone that has gained tremendous popularity (with skyrocketing costs) over the last 20 years. Legends say tourmaline inspires artistic expression and enhances your intuition. Certainly this gem's varied palette inspires designers to create jewelry to suit every mood.
Tourmaline offers an appealing rainbow of options for your jewelry wardrobe. Cranberry red, hot magenta, bubblegum pink, peach and orange, canary yellow, mint, grass and forest green, ocean blue, violet, and even bicolor pink and green stones.

The most valuable colors of tourmaline are the rare electric blues and greens found in Paraiba, Brazil in 1989. Such gems can command tens of thousands of dollars per carat. Blue indicolite, red rubellite, and green chrome tourmaline are also coveted and fine-quality material is difficult to find and highly valued.
Pink and mint green tourmaline, however, is widely feasible and more affordable, with prices in the hundreds of dollars per carat. Pink is thought to bring love and friendship and thought to be a stone with feminine energy. The greens is known as the Brazilian emeralds. This green stone is thought to bring money and stimulate creative abilities and to bring masculine energy. As for Natural Healers, it's an important gemstone for healing and to help with indigestion.

In addition to oddly varied beauty, tourmaline has unusual electrical properties. Crystals acquire a polarized electrical charge when heated or compressed. This property has also made tourmaline the latest miracle ingredient in moisturizers. Manufacturers claim the gem helps pull pollutants from your skin. Almost every color of tourmaline can be found in Brazil, especially in Minas Gerais and Bahia. In addition to Brazil, tourmaline is also mined in Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and California and Maine in the United States.

Because they develop in thin pencil-like crystals, tourmalines are most often cut into long rectangular shapes known as emerald cuts. The sizable diameter crystals can be faceted on the C axis (looking through it longways) if it's not closed or to dark.

The pink colors of tourmaline can be perfected with exposure to radiation and some blues and greens improve with heat but the results are stable and undetectable, so no one knows how common these practices are. Red tourmaline, which is often very included, can sometimes have surface-reaching fissures filled with resin to make them less visible.
Tourmaline is durable and suitable for everyday wear. Clean with mild dish soap and a toothbrush.

About the Author

Preferred Gemstones has been cutting gemstones since 2006 and has been a fan of unique design in brilliantly faceted Loose Gemstones. This article is the opinion of the writer only.