Amazonite: Meaning, Colors and the Five Kinds Cut as Beads
Amazonite is a blue-green feldspar with white running through it, and it comes as beads in five kinds, from a pale ice blue-green to a deep Russian teal to a blue-green shot with black tourmaline and pyrite. A strand of amazonite beads is the same stone in whichever kind the rough came from, and the kind is in the color. Below: what the stone has meant, what it is, the five kinds and what each does in a design, and the stones amazonite goes with.
Why amazonite is called the hope stone
Amazonite has long been called the hope stone, and the name is its reputation in one word. It is traditionally associated with harmony, calm and clear, truthful communication, and in traditional practice it is tied to the heart and the throat; it is said to soothe, and to steady the nerves and the voice, which is what hope looks like in a stone. That is reputation rather than a property of the mineral, but it is the reputation amazonite has carried for a long time, and it is why the stone tends to be chosen for pieces meant for every day: a blue-green that reads as even-tempered.
The reputation is old. Amazonite was one of the four stones the texts of pharaonic Egypt name most often, with carnelian, lapis lazuli and turquoise, and green stood for growing things and renewal. The bead workshops of the Middle and New Kingdoms cut it into smooth and ribbed bicones and spheres and strung it against carnelian and lapis, and because glass and faience were made to imitate it, scribes wrote the word for "true" beside its name to mark the real stone. The name itself came later and is a misdirection: it was given for the Amazon River, where green stones were once thought to come from, and no amazonite deposit has ever been found there.
What amazonite is
Amazonite is the blue-green variety of microcline, a potassium feldspar, and most microcline is white, cream or pink. The color comes from traces of lead and water held in the crystal and set by natural radiation in the rock over geological time, so it is grown in, not applied. Through nearly every piece runs a second feldspar, albite, in white streaks and patches; it grew in the same crystal and it is the signature of the stone, not a flaw. Amazonite sits at 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale with two directions of cleavage, which means it polishes well and chips if it takes a hard knock on an edge. It is cleaned with a soft cloth and mild soap, kept out of ultrasonic cleaners, hot water and chlorine, and stored away from harder stones. The color holds in normal wear; years of direct sun can lighten a saturated strand.
The five kinds of amazonite, and what each does in a design
Origin sets the color, and the color sets the job.
Brazilian amazonite: the everyday strand
Brazilian amazonite is the main source and the lighter, greener end of the range, a clean blue-green with bold white marbling, graded A, AA and AAA on how even the color runs; much of the amazonite sold with no origin attached is Brazilian too. Because the supply is steady it is the kind that gets cut into shapes: plain and faceted rounds from 4mm to 10mm, faceted rondelles, table-cut cubes, star-cut coins, faceted hearts, butterflies and puff squares, rice beads and pebbles, and large-hole rounds and rondelles drilled for cord. It is the amazonite for the body of a piece, with the 8mm round as the size most designs are built on and the shaped cuts as the accents. See the Brazilian amazonite beads.
Ice amazonite: the pale Brazilian
Ice amazonite is the palest, cleanest end of the Brazilian range, sold as a kind of its own: a light blue-green with the least veining and, in the thinner beads, a faint translucency where ordinary amazonite is opaque. It comes as A-grade rounds in 6mm, 8mm and 10mm. It is the quiet one, and it reads best against white, silver and pearl, where a stronger blue-green would take over. See the ice amazonite beads.
Russian amazonite: the deep teal
Russian amazonite is the deep end, the bluest and most saturated amazonite on the market, a teal the paler kinds are measured against, with the white marbling in finer threads. The deposits that produce it are few and far north, on the Kola Peninsula, and the supply is thin and comes and goes, so it appears as a short list: AA-grade rounds in 6mm, 8mm and 10mm, pebbles, ovals and teardrops, and a red-matrix oval with rust-brown veining through the teal. It is the amazonite for a piece where the stone is the point; a single strand of it carries a design the paler kinds would only support. See the Russian amazonite beads.
Black gold amazonite: the strand with its own accent
Black gold amazonite breaks the pattern. It is a trade name for amazonite that grew intergrown with black tourmaline and pyrite, so the blue-green carries dark, smoky patches and metallic flecks, and a strand reads as a mixed-mineral stone rather than a plain color. It comes mostly on 8-inch strands: 6mm, 8mm and 10mm rounds, 8mm faceted rondelles, 12mm coins and squares, 10x14mm ovals and tumbled nuggets, in polished and matte finishes, with large-hole rounds and rondelles for cord, and heishi, tubes and thin rondelles on 16-inch strands. It needs no second stone; the accent is already in the strand, and the matte finish turns the pyrite flecks into the only shine in the piece. See the black gold amazonite beads.
Peruvian amazonite: the free-form
Peruvian amazonite sits between Brazilian and Russian, a softer, paler green-blue from a smaller source, and it comes mostly as free-form work: pebbles, chips, teeth, rough nuggets and slices, with plain and star-cut rounds when the rough allows. It is the amazonite for the irregular strand, where no two beads match. Its supply is irregular too, and it comes and goes.
Real amazonite
Amazonite is one of the stones that reaches the market untreated as a rule; the look-alikes are the thing to watch for. Dyed howlite, magnesite and calcite are sold under the amazonite name, and they give themselves away with a flat, even color, dye pooled in the drill holes, and a grey web of veining where amazonite shows white albite. The white marbling is the quickest proof of the real stone.
What amazonite goes with
Amazonite is a cool neutral, and it ties other stones together more often than it leads. The stones it most often shares an order with are turquoise, labradorite, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, tiger eye, crazy lace agate, aquamarine, amethyst, garnet and carnelian: turquoise and aquamarine for a tonal blue-green run, carnelian and tiger eye for warm contrast, lapis for depth beside the pale kinds. Labradorite and moonstone are feldspars too, and the three together read as one family, the flash of the labradorite and the glow of the moonstone against the flat blue-green. With metal, brass and gold-tone warm amazonite and silver cools it.
One stone, five kinds: Brazilian for the everyday strand and the shaped cuts, ice for the palest blue-green, Russian for the deep teal, Peruvian for the free-form, and black gold for the strand that carries its own accent. All of it is in the amazonite collection.
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