Garnet
Hardness: 6.5-7.5 (Mohs scale)
Density: 3.10-4.30
Refractive Index: 1.713-1.888
From blood red, to pink, cinnamon and yellow, to green – all these colors can be found in varieties of garnet, a relatively durable stone that was a favorite stone of priests and nobility in medieval Europe. From an astrological point of view, garnets are recommended for people born in January, and therefore under the sign of Capricorn. Ayurveda connects it to the root chakra Muladhara.
The general public in the Czech Republic is most familiar with pyrope, known for its passionate deep red colour with subtle hints of brown, as relatively small grains with sizes in the order of millimeters are found there and have been used extensively in local jewellery-making.
However, when searching around the world, we also come across pyropes in the United States or South Africa.
Generally speaking, red varieties of garnet are among the most common in all corners of the world. In addition to pyrope, they include almandine and rhodolite. They occur in metamorphic rocks.
Similar processes also give birth to tsavorite (named after the Tsavo region in Kenya), a green garnet from the grossular group, which is much rarer.
Another important representative of this group is hessonite, or gomed – a cinnamon-colored garnet, which is found mainly in Sri Lanka and India, but also in Brazil and California.
Another valuable garnet type is demantoid, with its green to yellowish colour. It was discovered only in the late 19th century and was initially mistaken for emerald.
A special and highly prized variety of this gemstone is the mandarin garnet, also known as Namibian spessartine. On the other hand, if we seek a chemical blend between spessartine and pyrope, we get what's known as Malaia garnet – a stone that can captivate and enchant us with its subtle colour change.