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Color Changing Garnets
Color-change garnet shows the rarest optical effect in the garnet family: its color shifts with the light source, most often from blue-green or grey-green in daylight to purplish red under incandescent or warm artificial light. Most of these stones are a blend of pyrope and spessartine ((Mg,Mn)3Al2(SiO4)3) with traces of vanadium or chromium. With a Mohs hardness of 7 to 7.5 it is a genuine gemstone you can wear often.
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Gemstone guide
Color Changing Garnets
About color-change garnet
Alexandrite is the most famous stone with this behavior, but garnet shows it too, usually a little more subdued and at a far friendlier price. The effect happens because the stone transmits both green-blue and red light about equally, so it takes on the color that dominates the light falling on it: daylight is richer in blue and green, incandescent light in red. Color-change garnets were found in Madagascar in the late 1990s, and East Africa is another important source.
What you'll find in this collection
Our color-change garnets come from Africa, Madagascar and Tanzania, and all are untreated. You'll find small faceted ovals and rounds, from about 0.1 to 1.2 carats, each photographed in different light so you can see its own color change.
How to recognise color-change garnet
Look at the stone in daylight and then under a warm incandescent bulb or candlelight: the shift from green or blue to purple or red is the defining feature, and its strength varies from stone to stone. Garnet is singly refractive, so unlike alexandrite it does not show different colors in different directions under one light.
Caring for color-change garnet
Color-change garnet has no cleavage and wears well. Clean it with warm soapy water and a soft brush, and avoid sudden temperature changes.
Every stone is natural, and each listing gives its weight, size, origin and treatment, with photos of the actual stone.