Garnet

Garnet Has Been A Popular Gemstone To Use In Jewellery For A Very Long Time, And The Thought Of A Garnet Stone Usually Brings To Mind A Deep Blood Red, But Garnet Comes In A Huge Spectrum Of Colours, One For Almost Every Outfit Of The Week! Sarah Ezzy-Dickson Gets The Lowdown On This Amazing Stone.

THE NAME GARNET actually refers to a group of chemically and physically similar minerals. The name was derived from the Latin word granatum (meaning grain), which may have been taken from Punica granatum (pomegranate), as small, red garnet crystals were thought to look similar to pomegranate seeds. Over time it has also been known as the “carbuncle stone” and today still gets given interesting monikers such as Arizona ruby, Arizona spinel or New Mexico ruby.

While red is the most common colour of the garnet group, you can also find garnets in shades of green, yellow, orange, brown and purple, some of which are incredibly rare. It isn’t just the colours that are rare, but the effects within the stone, such as star garnets which appear to have a star-shaped gleam in them and stones that change colour depending on what type of light they are seen in.

There are many different types of garnet within the group, each from a different location and with a different colour and name. Here are just a few:

Red pyrope – a bright red, often with a slight brown tinge found in the former kingdom of Bohemia. They were world famous and much sought after in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the fashion of the time being pieces of jewellery set with a large number of small stones, focusing on the beauty of the stone itself.