A friendly guide to the not-so-obvious ways crystals get their colours and shine.
You pick up a crystal. It's electric blue. Suspiciously sparkly. Maybe a little too perfect.
And then comes the question:
“Wait… is this fake?”
You would think this has a simple yes-or-no answer.
It does not. Sorry. 😂
The crystal world is full of things that are natural, heat-treated, dyed, coated, lab-grown, glass-based, stabilized or some combination of the above.
And somehow, all of those things regularly get dumped into one giant bucket labelled FAKE.
That bucket is not particularly helpful.
So let's talk about what you're actually looking at.
🌎 NATURAL
Nature made the material. Humans may have cut and polished it.
🌎 + 🧑 TREATED / ENHANCED
Nature made it. Humans changed something about its appearance or durability.
🧪 LAB-GROWN / SYNTHETIC
Humans grew it, but it has essentially the same chemical, physical and optical properties as its natural counterpart.
✨ IMITATION / SIMULANT
It looks like another material, but it isn't chemically or structurally the same thing.
First Things First: “Man-Made” Doesn’t Automatically Mean Fake
This is where things get messy.
A lab-grown Sapphire is human-made, but it is still Sapphire.
Goldstone is human-made glass containing copper crystals. It isn’t pretending to be naturally occurring Goldstone because Goldstone itself is a manufactured material.
Opalite is generally glass-based.
Aura Quartz starts with natural Quartz and then receives a human-applied surface treatment.
Heat-treated Citrine? That started as naturally occurring Quartz—commonly Amethyst—and was heated to change its colour.
Those are five very different stories.
Calling all of them “fake” tells you almost nothing.
FAKE ≠ MAN-MADE
The better question is: What is it, and how was it made?
Meet the Usual Suspects 👀
These are some of the stones that tend to cause the most confusion.
Goldstone
Look at that sparkle.
Nature absolutely deserves credit for a lot of beautiful things.
This one was us.
Goldstone is glass containing tiny copper crystals that create its signature glittery appearance.
You’ll also see Blue Goldstone, a deep blue version with that same starry sparkle.
So is Goldstone natural? Nope.
Is someone scamming you by selling something called Goldstone? Also nope, as long as they’re telling you what it actually is.
And frankly, humans cooked up a tiny galaxy in a piece of glass. We can take the win.
Opalite
Ah, Opalite.
Glowy. Dreamy. Blue in one light, warm and orangey around the edges in another.
And typically… Glass.
Opalite is a human-made, glass-based material loved for that distinctive translucent glow.
That doesn’t suddenly make it ugly. It just means it isn’t a naturally mined Opal.
You are allowed to know exactly what something is and still think it’s pretty as hell.
Aura Quartz
Now we’re getting spicy.
Aura Quartz isn’t simply “fake Quartz.”
That’s because underneath all that rainbow colour is actual Quartz.
The Quartz receives a surface treatment, typically involving vapor deposition, which creates the metallic, iridescent appearance.
Natural Quartz? Yes. Natural rainbow coating? Absolutely not. 😂
Both facts can exist at once.
Heat-Treated Citrine
Oh boy.
We have entered The Citrine Discourse™.
Natural Citrine does exist, but it’s relatively rare. A large amount of Citrine sold commercially is produced by heating Amethyst.
The heat changes the colour of the Quartz from purple toward yellow, orange or reddish-brown tones.
So yes: It came out of the Earth. Yes: Humans changed it. And yes: You’ll still commonly see it sold as Citrine.
If you specifically want naturally coloured, untreated Citrine, that’s worth asking about.
🔥 FUN FACT: Most Citrine you’ll encounter in the gem market has been heat-treated. The internet arguing about it has yet to reverse this situation.
Okay. So Why Do We Do This to Crystals?
Mostly because humans have been looking at pretty rocks for a very long time and thinking: “Okay, but what if I made it MORE?”
Treatments can change colour, improve durability, increase clarity or create an appearance that doesn’t commonly occur in nature.
Some common methods include:
🔥 Heat
Heat can alter colour. One of the most familiar examples is heating Amethyst to produce Citrine-like yellow-to-orange colours.
🌈 Surface Treatments
Thin coatings can create colours and iridescent effects that aren’t naturally present. Aura-style Quartz is a great example.
🎨 Dye
Porous stones can absorb dye. Those absolutely electric pink, blue and purple Agates you’ve seen? Yeah. Nature has range, but sometimes we brought the highlighter.
⚡ Irradiation
Controlled irradiation can alter or intensify colour in certain gemstones. Blue Topaz is one of the best-known examples and is commonly produced using irradiation followed by heat.
🧴 Stabilization
Some naturally softer or more porous materials can be treated with polymers or resins to improve durability. Turquoise is a common example.
Can You Tell Just By Looking?
Sometimes. But this is where we need to ruin the fun slightly.
You cannot reliably identify every treatment just by eyeballing a crystal. Even trained gemologists sometimes need specialized equipment to determine whether a gemstone has been treated.
That said, there are clues that can make you suspicious.
Welcome to the Crystal Sus-O-Meter™ 👀
✨ Bubbles
Round bubbles inside something being sold as a natural crystal can be a clue that you’re looking at glass. (Psst — our Opalite is proudly glass-based and beautiful about it.)
🎨 Colour Hiding in Cracks
If colour seems particularly concentrated inside fractures, pores or banding, dye may be involved.
🌈 A Very Uniform Iridescent Surface
That rainbow finish may indicate a surface treatment — like on Aura Quartz, which wears it honestly.
💅 Suspicious Perfection
Perfectly uniform colour and clarity can be a clue that something is lab-grown or manufactured.
But, and this is important, none of these is a universal DIY test.
Sometimes the answer really is: We need a gemologist.
Very inconvenient for those of us who enjoy confidently staring at rocks.
Okay, But What About the Other Weird Ones?
Because Goldstone, Opalite, Aura Quartz and Citrine are only the beginning.
🎨 Dyed Agate / Chalcedony
The stone itself is natural, but bright colours can be introduced using dye. Look closely and you may see colour collecting in pores, fractures or along the banding.
✨ Crackle Quartz
Natural Quartz is heated and rapidly cooled to deliberately create its web of internal fractures. Some Crackle Quartz is also dyed afterward to make those fractures really pop.
🐯 Red Tiger’s Eye
Golden Tiger’s Eye occurs naturally. Red Tiger’s Eye is commonly heat-treated to create or deepen those reddish-brown tones.
🧿 Stabilized Turquoise
Turquoise can be porous and relatively soft, so some natural Turquoise is treated with resin or polymer to improve its durability and help it hold a polish.
💙 Blue Topaz
That ridiculously bright blue? Human intervention is commonly involved. Much of the vivid Blue Topaz on the market has been irradiated and heat-treated to produce its colour.
🧪 Lab-Grown Ruby & Sapphire
These are where the word “fake” becomes especially unhelpful.
Lab-grown Ruby and Sapphire are made by humans, but they’re grown to have essentially the same chemical and physical properties as their natural counterparts.
Human-made? Yep. Just coloured glass pretending to be Ruby? Nope.
🌈 Synthetic Opal
Unlike Opalite, synthetic Opal is specifically created to reproduce the structure and play-of-colour associated with natural Opal.
Again: Opalite and synthetic Opal are not the same thing. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
👁️ Fiber-Optic Cat’s Eye
Those impossibly perfect moving lines of light can come from manufactured glass fibres arranged to create the Cat’s Eye effect. Very cool. Very human-made.
🚩 Glass “Obsidian”
Now THIS is where we have a problem. Obsidian is naturally occurring volcanic glass. Ordinary manufactured glass being sold as natural Obsidian is not a treatment, enhancement or philosophical debate about what “real” means. It’s just labelled incorrectly.
So…Does Any of This Actually Matter?
Yes, but not because one category is “good” and another is “bad.”
It matters because you should know what you’re buying.
A treated crystal isn’t inherently a scam. A lab-grown gemstone isn’t inherently a scam. Goldstone isn’t a scam. Opalite isn’t a scam. Misrepresenting them is.
If you want completely natural, untreated minerals? Amazing.
If you fall violently in love with a piece of Opalite? Buy the Opalite. It was good enough for Taylor Swift to write a whole song about it. Who are we to argue? 😂
If Goldstone looks like someone trapped outer space in glass and you need it immediately? Understandable.
And if you use crystals spiritually, whether a crystal’s origin or treatment matters to your practice is ultimately personal. Some people prefer completely natural, untreated material. Others don’t care at all.
We’re not here to issue the Crystal Police Handbook. We just think you deserve to know which one you’re holding.
Know What You’re Buying. Then Buy What You Like.
You don’t need to pass a geology exam before you’re allowed to enjoy crystals.
Natural, treated, lab-grown, glass-based—we think the important part is simply being honest about what something is.
And sometimes humans apparently look at molten glass and think: Needs more glitter. Honestly? Fair.
Want to See the Difference in Person?
Next time you’re at The Rock Space, ask us! We love showing people the differences between natural, treated and human-made materials, and sometimes it’s much easier to understand when you can actually hold the pieces side by side.