Garnet is the birthstone for those born in the month of January. Typically thought of as red in color, garnets actually are all colors except blue. I thought it might be fun to highlight a different color of garnet this month!
This beautiful garnet is part of the spessartine family that vary in color from light and bright orange to deeper, more reddish orange. Any hint of red or yellow makes the gem a spessartite rather than a mandarin garnet. Only the most vivid pure orange – often described as “electric” – is really defined as mandarin tangerine.
They are graded 6.5 to 7.0 on the Mohs scale and are one of the few gemstones that have no enhancements – they aren’t oiled, heated, or treated and are usually eye clean. Their relative rareness makes them expensive. Mandarin garnets are fairly recent to the gemstone scene and were discovered in Namibia in the early 1990s.
They exhibit such a unique warm, cheerful glow. Don’t you agree?
