With our brand new range of Druzy jewellery we've decided to give you a little bit of information about this wonderful, versatile stone and it's origins.
What is Druzy?
Druzy is the glittering effect of tiny crystals over top a colourful mineral. It is beautiful when used in making jewellery. One of the perks to druzy stones is that they are not as expensive as big faceted gemstones and they have sparkle and great colour and it can be cut into various shapes with ease. The druzy quartz gems grow slowly over millions of years and are found as the very last layer of growth on agate or another colourful base. It does not always refer to quartz, druzy is any kind of mineral found in a plate-like form, such asgarnets, calcite, dolomite and malachite. Common colours are white, yellow, brown, red, and orange. Druzy style beads are great for centrepieces in pendants. While they look sparkly and delicate, druzy quartz is a fairly durable gem.
Main Features of Druzy Cabochons
Druzy quartz is made up of many tiny crystals and it has a velvety and soft appearance to it. There can be large formed crystals or many medium crystals with the formation. Treated colorful crystals are sometimes coated with a film of gold, platinum, sterling silver, or titanium. When the Druzy has titanium on it, this adds cobalt, purple, or various rainbow colors. Agates are also easy to dye, so many different shades of backgrounds for the druzy can be made.
Size
There are various sizes in this type of crystal therе can be very tiny pieces or larger pieces which might be used as display items. The crystals must be cut very carefully as it is easily damaged. The crystal is usually cut fee form to accentuate the beauty of the crystals. In the case of most common quartz material, it is found on the last stages of growth in an agate geode, so pieces are chopped out of the centers of geodes. Some druzy pieces, like garnets, are found as interlocking crystal plates, when found on matrix, they already have a backing, the lapidary artist simply needs to cut out the form and trim off the background matrix to form the cabochon. Vuggy carbonate clusters are often found to have desirable traits, such as the beautiful druzy quartz over sky blue chrysocolla from Peru or the blocks of bright pink calcite from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Why it is Popular
The main reason its popular is that is a very inexpensive material to work with and it can make very nice pieces which make it seem like it’s an expensive gem when it is in fact not expensive at all. You can get good Druzy crystals at many mineral and rock shows for much lower prices than other stones. It all depends on the color and size of the stones but you can get a lot of value for your spending budget. Most of the commercial Druzy quartz comes from Brazil.