Jewelry Blog

>To clean garnet, use warm soapy water and a soft brush. An ultrasonic cleaner is safe for most garnets, except andradite (demantoid). Do not steam clean garnet.

Its name comes from the Latin “Granatus,” which means “seed-like” or “like a grain”. Many garnet crystals have the shape and color of pomegranate seeds. This hard, durable and often very brilliant gem offers great versatility because of its variety. Believed to represent faith, loyalty, truth and devotion, garnet is known as the stone of commitment.

Most people think of garnet as a single type of gem that is dark red in color. Actually, garnet is a gem family that spans a range of red, green, yellow, orange, purple and brown shades. Faceted garnets can display brilliant, rich, lustrous colors that look good in sunlight and artificial light. Garnet displays the greatest variety of color of any mineral, occurring in every color except blue.
Color is most important when determining the value of garnet. Lively, bright colors usually command higher prices than gems that are too light or dark. But remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and color preferences are subjective. Of course, clarity, cut and carat weight also factor into the cost of a gem. Better quality garnets are usually eye clean and very high clarity (not many inclusions) under magnification.

The most rare and valuable of the garnet species are tsavorite (green grossular) and demantoid (green andradite). Tsavorite–in a lively, strong, bright green color–can command several hundreds of dollars per cart depending on quality and size.

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