The stone guide
The stones we sell and set, described plainly: their colour, their nature, and the care they need.
Precious, semi-precious, ornamental
The traditional classification recognises only four precious stones: diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald. Everything else falls under fine stones — a term that has replaced the older "semi-precious", judged misleading.
Fine does not mean less beautiful. It means less rare. A fire opal or a tanzanite surpasses in beauty many a middling sapphire.
Ornamental stones are opaque and worked in volume rather than in facets: malachite, lapis lazuli, turquoise, onyx.
The stones in our jewellery
Amethyst. Purple quartz, from pale lilac to deep violet. Its colour comes from traces of iron. It fades in direct light: do not leave it in the sun.
Citrine. The yellow cousin of amethyst, the same quartz family. From straw yellow to golden brown.
Rose quartz and smoky quartz. Two varieties of the same mineral, one milky pink, the other translucent brown to almost black.
Tiger's eye. Brown quartz crossed by shimmering bands that seem to move as you turn the stone. Hard-wearing, easy to live with.
Onyx. Black chalcedony, sometimes banded with white. Hard and easy to care for, much used in men's rings.
Carnelian. Orange to red chalcedony, translucent, with a matt glow. One of the oldest ornamental stones of the Mediterranean basin.
Turquoise. Blue to green depending on its copper and iron content. Porous: it absorbs water, oils and perfumes, which turn it green. Dry cloth only.
Malachite. Intense green banded in concentric rings. A copper carbonate, very common in the Moroccan Anti-Atlas. Soft and porous.
Lapis lazuli. Deep ultramarine flecked with golden points — pyrite, not gold. Often wax-stabilised: avoid hot water.
Mother-of-pearl. Not a mineral but an organic material, produced by the mollusc inside its shell. Unique iridescent sheen. Very sensitive to alcohol and perfume.
Coral. Organic too, the skeleton of a marine animal. A central element of Berber jewellery. Porous, it dulls on contact with cosmetics.
Amber. Fossilised resin, from pale yellow to dark brown, sometimes with air bubbles trapped inside. Extremely soft: it scratches against another piece of jewellery.
Moonstone. A feldspar with a floating bluish sheen that shifts with the angle. Fragile, protect it from knocks.
Haematite. An iron oxide, metallic grey with red glints. Heavy, dense, magnetic. Damaged by damp.
Garnet. Most often deep red, though green and orange ones exist. Hard, needing no particular care.
Zircon. Beware of the confusion: zircon is a natural stone, while cubic zirconia is a synthetic stone made in a laboratory to imitate diamond. The names look alike; the stones are not the same, and neither are the prices. Where our pieces carry the synthetic stone, our product pages say cubic zirconia.
Collectors' minerals
Azurite and malachite. Two copper carbonates born from the weathering of the same veins. Blue azurite slowly turns into green malachite on contact with damp — which is why the two are almost always found together in the Anti-Atlas deposits.
Desert rose. A crystallisation of gypsum or barite formed in damp sand, in clusters of blades that suggest a flower. Very friable.
Meteorites. Recognisable by their unusual density and by the rounded hollows on their surface, formed as they crossed the atmosphere. The Sahara yields many: the pale ground makes them stand out and the dry climate preserves them.