Judging quality
Under a loupe, real material shows discrete glinting red flakes suspended in clear quartz. Uniform pink glass with gold-colored glitter is goldstone-style manufactured glass.
Quartz
Strawberry Quartz
Quartz filled with tiny red platelets of hematite or lepidocrocite that give a strawberry-seed sparkle through a pink body.
Care
Hard and stable.
History & lore
Much of the finest material has come from Kazakhstan since the 1990s; genuine rough has always been scarce relative to demand.
Cultural history, recorded as tradition rather than as medical or scientific claim.
Common questions about Strawberry Quartz
- What is Strawberry Quartz?
- Quartz filled with tiny red platelets of hematite or lepidocrocite that give a strawberry-seed sparkle through a pink body.
- How hard is Strawberry Quartz and what is it made of?
- Strawberry Quartz is a Quartz-family mineral with the composition SiO2 with hematite/lepidocrocite. It crystallizes in the trigonal system and rates 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. It occurs in pink-red, red, blush.
- Where does Strawberry Quartz come from?
- Notable localities for Strawberry Quartz include Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, Madagascar.
- How do you tell good Strawberry Quartz from filler?
- Under a loupe, real material shows discrete glinting red flakes suspended in clear quartz. Uniform pink glass with gold-colored glitter is goldstone-style manufactured glass.
- How do you care for Strawberry Quartz?
- Hard and stable.
See it in person
Photographs only go so far
Both rooms are open six days a week, and there is always someone happy to pull pieces out of the case so you can compare them under the light.