When I said in an older post that I had never handled natural citrine… that turns out not to have been, um, entirely accurate. Since I didn’t know what citrine was, I had a few in my keeping and didn’t know it. In fact, one of them is a chipped, included point that I had always been attracted to without knowing why. I thought it was a, well, yellow-tinted quartz. To review, briefly: citrine is yellow-tinted quartz. The deep gold, sparkly quartz that you think is citrine is actually amethyst that has been heat-treated to change the color.
The thing is, Mr. Elfnoodles and I have a pile of rough rocks and crystals from one of those gem mine places in North Carolina, and North Carolina saw fit to sneak in some citrines, although I didn’t recognize them as such until recently.
I’m planning to photograph some natural citrines alongside some heated amethysts and post them here, but some of the natural ones still have the iron oxide stains they come out of the ground with and it will be hard to really see the color in the photograph until I can remove it.
As an aside, iron oxide stains on quartz are most commonly removed with a soak in oxalic acid (normally sold as wood bleach), but apparently hardware stores no longer bother to carry it. I guess it’s not expensive enough and they can make more off of fancier products? Who knows. I’ve had a hell of a time finding it now. An alternate suggestion on rockhounding boards is to use a product called “Rust Out” but I haven’t had a chance to try that yet.
Anyhoo… stop buying fake citrines! I mentioned before that a lot of metaphysical writers, and of course, store websites, don’t have any problem with them as “healing crystals,” but since I’ve been spending more time with them, I have to disagree. The treated stones have been abused, treated quite disrespectfully, and their energy is generally jangly and unsettling. If you have any, be respectful to them, and continue keeping them with other crystals, but they are NOT citrine and can’t be. You can’t just take a crystal and try to “enhance” it or turn it into something it’s not. It doesn’t work that way, any more than it would on you.
And, if you’re a crystal nerd like me, try to get ahold of a real one. They are really amazing. Even a citrine that is relatively inexpensive – it doesn’t have to be bright yellow – is wonderful to have around.
2 Comments
May I know how to differenciate between real and fake citrine(heated amethysts) ?
Thanks fo your explaination! It seems more clear to me now
..I really appreacite if u can include a real citrine photo as well if you can. As I have observed, citrine that are normally sell are clear bright yellow color (darker yellow) but the price are pretty affordable. It maybe heated amethyst.
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[...] A new visitor (hi!) asked about how to tell the difference between the baked citrine (heat-treated amethyst), and genuine citrine. I’ll post photos as soon as I can, but in the meantime I think I am familiar enough with them now that I can describe it. Real citrine, in my experience, looks exactly like regular clear quartz, but with a golden yellow tint. In affordable specimens, the color tends to be pretty light, but it is definitely there. Brightly-colored natural specimens exist but are very rare and so are priced accordingly. The morphology is also like regular quartz – this is important. The rough points are shaped more like clear quartz points, not like amethyst points. You may have noticed amethyst usually forms short, angled points (I’ve seen this shape called “dragonstooth”) and tight clusters. Also, if you look into a natural citrine, at its internal structure, that also is like regular quartz – it might have some inclusions, fractures, clouds, etc. but not the “crackle” or “sparkle” look of heat-treated amethyst. Finally, the natural citrines I have seen all have the color spread uniformly throughout, without large white patches. [...]