Stone 101
Soft, colourful and a bit of a magic trick: clear calcite makes words look doubled.
Honey, orange, pink, white, green and blue, often glowing from inside. Here you'll find chunks, slices, hearts, spheres, towers, clusters and optical calcite.
The basics
Calcite is calcium carbonate, one of the most common minerals on Earth and the main ingredient in limestone and marble.
It's soft at Mohs 3, so a copper coin can scratch it. A drop of acid makes it fizz, which is how geologists spot it.
Clear optical calcite, also called Iceland spar, splits light in two. Set it on a printed word and you'll see the word twice.
Rituals, not rules
These are traditions people enjoy, not promises. Pick the one you keep coming back to.
Care
Straight talk
Most calcite is natural and cheap enough that faking it rarely pays. Some very bright blue, green or pink calcite is dyed, though, and the colour can pool in cracks. If one of our pieces is dyed or man-made, the title will say so.
Keep going
Good questions
It depends on the colour. Orange is traditionally linked with creativity, blue with calm and pink with comfort. Lots of people just pick the colour that makes them happy.
Best not. It's soft and can dull or dissolve slowly, especially in anything acidic. Dust it, or try smoke or moonlight for a traditional cleanse.
Both are calcium carbonate. The atoms are arranged differently, so aragonite often grows in spiky clusters while calcite forms rhombs and chunky masses.
Real calcite is soft, so a copper coin can scratch it. Clear pieces show a double image. Very neon colours, or colour pooled in cracks, can mean dye.
