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Is your crystal real? Find out free.
You already suspect the answer, or you would not have searched it.
Most “citrine” is heat-treated amethyst. Most “turquoise” is dyed howlite. Upload a photo and we'll tell you how to check yours.
Most fake crystals are not fake at all. They are cheap stones wearing a better name, or common ones heated, dyed or sprayed. Of the 127 stones we know, 24 get sold this way. Send a photo and I will name yours, then hand you the test that settles it. Free, no account.
127 crystals catalogued1,524 readings written, one per stone per sign113 guides in the Journal
Option one
Upload a photo
Daylight, plain background, close enough to see the surface. Your phone strips the location off the photo before it ever leaves you.
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Option two
Tell us what it was sold as
Pick the name off the label. I will give you the test for that stone, and the cheap thing it usually gets swapped for.
The stones people are most often sold wrong
Every one of these has a test you can do at home in a minute. The test is right on the page. Free, no account, no email.
Citrine (Heat-Treated Amethyst)
The label says citrine. The stone is amethyst, or sometimes smoky quartz, that has been baked at roughly 400 to 550 degrees Celsius. The heat turns the violet iron colour centres orange-brown. It is still real quartz and the change is permanent, but the name is not honest unless the heating is disclosed.
The test
First check it is quartz. It should scratch glass. Then read where the colour changes. A chalky white base that breaks into sharp orange at the tips means heated amethyst, every time. Natural colour never stops on a hard line like that. There is no other test you can run at home. The heat is permanent, and only the colour pattern gives it away.
Turquoise
Most turquoise on sale has been stabilised with plastic or waterglass, and much of it is dyed. Block turquoise is powdered stone in resin. Dyed howlite and dyed magnesite are sold as turquoise and are neither.
The test
Start with a drill hole or a chipped edge. Dyed stone shows a white interior under the blue skin. Then rub a cotton bud of acetone on a hidden spot. It lifts blue dye off howlite and leaves real turquoise unchanged. A steel knife will not cut the harder turquoise, which runs 5 to 6 on the hardness scale. Dyed howlite and magnesite are only 3.5, so a knife cuts them easily, and their colour sits concentrated in the veins.
Moonstone
The test
Tilt it under a lamp. Real moonstone gives a soft blue-white glow that moves with the angle. Opalite is glass and does the opposite, a warm orange glow with a light behind it and a cold blue glow in reflected light, plus round bubbles under a loupe. A piece of quartz will scratch moonstone, but a steel knife will not. Look for flat cleavage steps meeting at about 90 degrees.
Aura Quartz
Aura quartz is not a mineral. It is ordinary quartz with a metal coating bonded on inside a vacuum chamber, using vaporised titanium, gold, platinum, silver or niobium. The stone is real. The colour is manufactured, a film a few atoms thick, on sale since the 1980s. It is permanent but it can be rubbed away. No aura quartz comes out of the ground looking like that.
The test
Find a chipped, sawn or broken area. On aura quartz the colour stops dead at that edge and plain uncoloured quartz shows underneath. That is the whole test. Natural iridescence, the kind in labradorite or rainbow obsidian, sits inside the stone. It flashes as you tilt through one plane instead of coating every surface evenly.
Amethyst
The test
Drag an edge across a piece of glass. Amethyst scratches it. Fluorite, much softer at 4 on the hardness scale, will not. Fluorite also breaks along flat faces that meet in an eight-sided shape, and they reflect like tiny mirrors. Then hold the stone up to a lamp. Real amethyst shows colour in straight angular bands. Dyed quartz looks dead uniform, with colour caught in the cracks.
Malachite
Malachite is a copper carbonate. Much of what is sold under the name is reconstituted, meaning crushed malachite powder set in resin, or a polymer imitation with no malachite in it. Both are common, and neither is the solid stone.
The test
Scratch it somewhere hidden. Malachite is soft, 3.5 to 4 on the Mohs hardness scale, and it leaves a bright green streak. Plastic and glass fakes leave no green streak, and they often show mould seams or trapped bubbles. A drop of vinegar fizzes on malachite because it is a carbonate. That fizz etches the stone, so use it only on an edge that is already damaged. Wash your hands after, because the powder is copper.
Alexandrite
Sold under another name
Amber
Sold under another name
Ammonite
Sold under another name
Aquamarine
Sold under another name
Bismuth
Sold under another name
Black Onyx
Sold under another name
Blue Apatite
Sold under another name
Blue Aventurine
Sold under another name
Blue Goldstone
Sold under another name
Calcite (Coloured Varieties)
Sold under another name
Carnelian
Sold under another name
Chalcedony
Commonly treated
Cherry Quartz
Sold under another name
Chrysocolla
Sold under another name
Diamond
Commonly treated
Emerald
Sold under another name
Golden Healer Quartz
Sold under another name
Goldstone
Sold under another name
Howlite
Sold under another name
Jadeite Jade
Sold under another name
Kunzite
Sold under another name
Lapis Lazuli
Sold under another name
Still not sure?
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Common questions
How can you tell if citrine is real?
Almost all citrine on the market is heat-treated amethyst. Look at the base: a white, chalky base with sharp orange tips is heated amethyst. Natural citrine is an even, pale, smoky-lemon colour throughout.
Is my turquoise dyed howlite?
Dyed howlite is softer than turquoise and its matrix lines sit on the surface rather than through the stone. A hidden spot rubbed with acetone will lift dye off howlite.
Can a photo prove my crystal is real?
No, and I will not pretend it can. A photo cannot feel weight or hardness. It gets you the right name, the right family and the usual copycat. Then I hand you the test that settles it.
Do I need an account to use this?
No. The name and the test are free and always will be. An account only saves your results and reads each stone against your birth chart.
Is a treated stone a fake?
Not always. Heating, dyeing and coating are normal in the trade. It goes wrong when a treated stone is sold as a rarer one at a rarer price. I name the treatment and let you decide.
Still not sure?
Scan your stone. It will tell you what it is in seconds, even when the answer is fake.
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Check the rest of your shelf
I name any stone from a photo, call out the fakes, and tell you what each one means for you. Free to start.