Larimar 101: One Mountain, Every Shade of Caribbean Blue

Larimar looks like shallow water over white sand, and all of it comes from one mountainside in the Dominican Republic. Here is where it comes from, how it really got its name, and how to read its color when you design with it.

One Mountain, One Stone

Larimar is blue pectolite. Pectolite turns up all over the world, and almost everywhere it is white or grey. In one place, the Sierra de Bahoruco near the town of Barahona on the Dominican Republic's southwest coast, copper got into the mix and turned it blue.

It formed in cavities in old volcanic rock, and nobody has found a second deposit. That hillside is the whole supply.

Our sources tell us the price is going up and that the gemmy material is getting harder to find. We are not saying that to hurry anyone. It is just worth knowing when you plan a line around a stone.

How It Really Got Its Name

You will often read that a Peace Corps volunteer discovered larimar and named it for his daughter. That is close, but it gives the credit to the wrong man.

In 1974 Miguel Méndez, a Dominican, and Norman Rilling, a Peace Corps volunteer, found blue pebbles on the beach near Barahona. Locals believed the stone came from the sea. The two followed the Bahoruco River upstream and found where it actually came from, up in the hills.

Méndez gave it the name. Lari is for his daughter, Larissa. Mar is Spanish for sea.

He was not quite the first to notice it, either. A parish priest, Father Miguel Domingo Fuertes Loren, asked for permission to mine a blue stone in the area back in 1916. The request went nowhere, and the stone waited almost sixty years for its name.

Reading the Blue

Larimar runs from nearly white to a deep, stormy blue, and where a strand sits in that range changes what it does in a design.

Sky blue is the color most people picture, pale to medium blue with white drifting through it. It reads soft and beachy, and it is the most available.

Deep blue is more saturated, with less white and a cleaner pattern. It holds its own as the main stone in a piece.

Volcanic blue is the deepest natural color, with very little white. It is rare in any form and rarer still in calibrated beads.

We grade on that blue. AAA is the gemmy material with the most even color, AA sits just below it, and A grade shows more white.

The White Is the Pattern

The white in larimar is not a flaw to cut around. It nets through the blue in thin, soft-edged lines, the way sunlight ripples across the bottom of a pool. The best pieces look like you are looking down through water.

So when you compare strands, look at two things: how blue the blue is, and how the white moves through it.

Size Changes the Look

This is the part that surprises designers. The same stone does different jobs at different sizes.

At 3mm and 4mm, a bead is too small to hold a pattern. The strand reads as a wash of color that shifts gently from bead to bead. Use small sizes when you want blue.

At 8mm and up, each bead has room to show its own marbling. Use larger sizes when you want pattern.

Faceted or smooth? Larimar is opaque to slightly translucent, so facets do not light it up from inside the way they do a clear stone. They give the surface a quiet flicker and a crisper edge, which suits the small sizes. Smooth rounds show the pattern best.

Larimar With Matrix

Matrix strands keep some of the rock the larimar grew in. Red and brown run through the blue and white, and the whole strand turns earthier and warmer.

It is a different mood from the clean blue grades. Reach for it when a design leans toward copper, leather or bronze instead of silver and white.

Designing With Larimar

Metal. Silver keeps larimar cool and is the classic pairing. Gold warms it up and makes the blue look richer.

White companions. Pearl and moonstone echo the white marbling and let the blue stay the only color in the piece.

Warm companions. Carnelian, coral and copper pick up the red in a matrix strand.

Other blues. Turquoise and amazonite are stronger colors, and larimar will look paler beside them. That can be lovely in a graduated design, but do it on purpose.

Scale. Because the stone is scarce, small beads go a long way. A few inches of 3mm faceted larimar between larger stones gives a design its blue without using a whole strand.

A Soft Stone, So Treat It Kindly

Larimar is 4.5 to 5 on the Mohs scale, softer than quartz. It does best in necklaces, earrings and pendants, where it will not take knocks.

High heat can whiten larimar, and the standing advice is to keep it out of long stretches of direct sun. Normal wear is fine. Store finished pieces out of the window, skip the ultrasonic and steam cleaners, and wipe with a soft cloth.

A Word on Fakes

A stone this scarce gets imitated. Dyed howlite, dyed quartz and glass are all sold as larimar, mostly at the low end of the market.

Two quick tells: color that is perfectly even from bead to bead, and dye that has pooled darker in the cracks. Real larimar varies within a single bead, and its white lines have soft edges. Ours is natural, and the few dyed strands say so in the title.

FAQ

Is larimar really found in only one place?

Yes. It comes from the Sierra de Bahoruco near Barahona in the Dominican Republic. There is no second source.

What makes larimar blue?

Copper. Ordinary pectolite is white or grey, and larimar is the one variety where copper colored it blue.

Who named larimar?

Miguel Méndez, after the 1974 find. He combined his daughter Larissa's name with mar, the Spanish word for sea.

Is larimar treated?

It is typically untreated, and the blue you see is the blue that came out of the ground. The few dyed strands say so in the title.

Will larimar fade?

Everyday wear will not hurt it. Keep it away from high heat and out of prolonged direct sun.

What is larimar with matrix?

Larimar cut with some of its host rock left in, which adds red and brown to the blue and white.

One mountain, every shade of Caribbean blue. Shop the full Larimar collection to see the range side by side.