Tourmaline

The many colours of Tourmaline

In just a few years, tourmaline has carved out a prestigious place for itself in the world of jewelry. Its name comes from an Indo-European language (Sinhala) and means "stone with mixed colours". Its wide range of colours is precisely what gives it its charm. Colourless, pink, red, yellow, brown, green, blue, violet, black or even multicoloured; you’ll see it in every colour.

To each colour its name

Rubellite, dravite, verdelite, indigolite or schörl are all names under which tourmaline can be found, reffering to its colour. In sequence, these names refer to the pink to red, yellow-orange, green, blue and black varieties. Other names also exist and actually refer to the mineralogical properties of the stone or its geographical origin. To avoid any confusion, we always prefer to describe our tourmalines by adding its colour behind the name of the stone at LELLAL.

Watermelon

The "watermelon" tourmaline is one of the favourites. Often cut into slightly faceted slices or cabochons, it appears with reddish-pink heart surrounded by a colourless halo and a green cortex. These colours can also be reversed, and in this case it is not a watermelon tourmaline in the strict sense of the term, but this appellation is commonly accepted all the same. Every stone is unique in any case.

A little anecdote; the Dutch were the first to import tourmaline into Europe. Not to make jewelry, but to clean their pipes! Thanks to its pyroelectric properties wich details will be passed on here, tourmaline appeared to be particularly effective in attracting the ashes piled up in the pipes, and thus to clean them. Kind of a precious cleaning tool !

Needless to say that tourmaline can be found in all its colours and shapes on LELLAL. The Festival de Tourmalines necklace, unique pieces by Céline d'Aoust and rings set with tourmalines designed Caroline Swolfs are as many jewels set with tourmalines you’ll find on our webshop.

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