Tiger's eye jewelry normally features cabochon cut specimens
that exhibit a wonderful effect known as chatoyancy. This changeable luster
and rich brown to golden color makes tiger's eye jewelry striking and
desirable. As a variety of quartz, tiger's eye is similar, yet different from
cat's eye that actually belongs to the chrysoberyl mineral family. To make
things more confusing, there is also quartz cat's eye and quartz hawk's eye.
The effect of quartz cat's eye is due to inclusions of fine
asbestos. The colors are usually yellowish, brownish or greenish, though white
and gray have also been found. Crocidolite, which is blue asbestos, may
decompose and change to quartz, retaining its fibrous structure. This can be
further cemented by quartz and stained by iron oxides to yield a dense,
fibrous material that is called tiger's eye. If original crocidolite is
present in the tiger's eye, a blue tone may be present, and this is called
zebra tiger's eye. Without the presence of iron oxides the material will
remain blue, this variety is called hawk's eye. The common factor between
these varieties of quartz is that they all exhibit chatoyancy and, therefore,
make beautiful jewelry.
Moh's scale of hardness classifies tiger's eye as 7. While
this is relatively resistant to scratch, it is not recommended to clean
tiger's eye jewelry using steam or ultrasonic gem cleaner. It is best to use a
polishing cloth. Also, because tiger's eye jewelry often is created using
cabochons that are easily struck, great care should be taken to avoid direct
blows that may break these gemstones.
Much of Forever Jewelers jewelry is antique style and are
unique in the industry of being pieces of fine jewelry that stand out among
other contemporary styles. We offer both, but our focus is on the antique
style settings. We hope you enjoy them.
