May Birthstone: All About Emerald!

Greetings Beaders, Leah here from Eureka Crystal Beads! I’m excited to bring to you the first installment of 12: Birthstones! At the beginning of each month I’ll bring you a blog that is chock-full of everything you might want to know about that month’s stone. Were you born this month? If so, you might take particular interest in my first blog in this series: EMERALD, the birthstone for May.

An Emerald is a precious gemstone and a variety of the mineral Beryl – colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale. (To give you a reference point, a Diamond is a 10 on the Mohs scale, and considered the hardest mineral in the world on this 1-10 stone hardness measuring system.)Depending on quality, an Emerald (along with several other colored gemstones) is considered more rare and more valuable than a Diamond! The deeper or more green an Emerald, the more valuable it is. The rarest Emeralds will appear to be an intense green-blue. Emeralds are found all over the world, including Colombia, Brazil, Afghanistan and Zambia.

If you’re a believer in the metaphysical properties of stones, the Emerald is known for enhancing unconditional love, unity, and promoting friendship. Emeralds are considered to stimulate the heart chakra, having a healing effect on the emotions as well as the physical heart. It can keep partnerships in balance and can signal unfaithfulness if it changes color. (Though it should be noted that if any stones in your collection change color it’s more likely that there is a scientific explanation behind this occurrence so I wouldn’t be so quick to make your significant other sleep on the couch!)

Interesting Fact: The Bahia Emerald is an 840 lb. stone discovered in Bahia, Brazil, in 2001. This stone reportedly contains over 180,000 carats of emeralds (approximately 79.38 lb.), including the largest single shard of emerald ever found, described as “the size of a man’s thigh” !!

If you’re looking to rock (pun intended) this stunning vivid green, Eureka Crystal Beads carries many Swarovski Crystal Beads, pendants, and rivolis (along with Czech glass, seed beads, cup chain, etc!) in this fantastic color that will afford you lots of options and price points to make your neck, wrist, or ear lobes shine and sparkle. .

Consider making an Emerald-Inspired gift for yourself to celebrate the warming weather, Mother’s Day, or for a friend or loved-one born in May!