Turquoise – the stone of your choice
Turquoise is a natural stone, forms when water passed through rocks that contain minerals like copper, aluminum and others under the complex environment for stone formation. It will take a millions of years to get the stone that we call “turquoise”.
Turquoise is considered to have the hardest value of 5 – 6 on the Mohs scale. If you do the comparison with the diamond, the hardest stone in the world, turquoise is moderately hard. Not too hard but again not too soft. However, it can be porous. So be careful with all chemical contact; perfume, soaps and also lotions are suggested to be avoid. Clean your turquoise every time after use.
The stone is well known for its blue color, according to the present of copper inside. However, there are actually many colors for the turquoise stone depend on the area where turquoise is formed. If aluminum is presented, you can get the green shade turquoise. With zinc, the color of turquoise is in the yellow-green shade. It is really depend on the environment where the stone was formed. You cannot really guess what color would the turquoise be when the mine started their work in many places around the world. Although variety of turquoise in color has been found around the world, the clear blue Persian turquoise is considered as the best quality turquoise in the world.
Not only the colors that are different, you can also find the dark marking inside turquoise as well. This marking is called as “matrix” which also gives different color based on the mineral inside the stone. If the stone contain iron pyrite, the matrix will be in black. With rhyolite inside, turquoise will have yellow matrix and brown matrix will be found in the iron oxide containing rock. The more strong color of turquoise tends toward green while the more irregular matrix will effect to lower the stone’s quality.
Turquoise is very popular in the jewelry world according to its greenish blue color. Its dramatic color brings us a happy and cheerful feeling. The blue sky to green of the sea color is the great combination that always bring us a better feeling. With your turquoise jewelry, you need to protect it from cosmetics, heat and bright light as these factors can easily destroy the stones quality. The best way to take care of your turquoise jewelry is clean it with a soft cloth every time you have finished using the piece.