Topaz is a very famous gemstone, especially on jewellery lovers! According to the lore it was believed that if you keep a topaz at your home, you will gain very good health.
Topaz can be found in many different colours, such as orange, pink, blue, brown or even colourless! Brazil is the most important source of topazes, but you can also find them in Australia, Japan, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma) and Russia. Its high hardness, 8 at Moh's scale, makes it a very durable and usable gemstone in jewellery. However, topaz shows perfect basal cleavage, meaning that great caution should be taken when cutting, setting and handling it in jewellery. This gemstone belongs to the orthorhombic crystal system. As a crystal it presents usually long orthorhombic prisms with a characteristic rhombus-shaped cross section. Sometimes it might show some striations, which are parallel lines along its prisms. On the photo below 2 topaz crystals in orange and pink colour are depicted. Honestly, I could not choose between these two beautiful and vivid colours 😀! Both of them are so pretty and interesting!
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| 2 Topaz crystals in orange and pink colour presenting the orthorhombic crystal system characteristics |
Topaz is very often treated. Many of the pink topazes used in the market, have come from the heat treatment of brown and yellow topazes which contain chromium. Moreover, irradiating a colourless topaz will produce yellow and brown colours, which if then are treated with heat they will turn to blue colour of topaz. This blue colour is stable and it will not fade if it will be exposured to the strong light. Finally, you might have heard or read on the description of jewellery about the 'mystic topaz'. This is actually a topaz which has been coated, in order to produce an iridescent effect.
When it comes to jewellery, topaz is not an affordable gemstone. Mainly because of its high hardness, making it a very durable gemstone and also because ot its variety of colours. You can choose the colour that you prefer the most and pick up your very own piece of jewellery with topaz. On the photo below you can see a thin chain necklace in 9carat gold metal with a round cut blue topaz by Adara jewellery.
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| Necklace in 9carat gold thin chain with a round cut blue topaz | by Adara jewellery |
I would suggest that you wear your topazes jewellery with night oufits, because the designs are usually more glamorous. Moreover, topaz usually has a very good polish and it is a valuable gemstone, keeping its throne right below the sapphires and rubies!
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