How to Spot a Fake Crystal Before You Pay for It

Here is a fact the crystal trade would rather you did not dwell on: a meaningful share of what sits in shop displays is not what the label says. Dyed howlite sold as turquoise. Heated amethyst sold as citrine. Molded glass sold as obsidian, moldavite, and half a dozen other things. This is not a fringe problem, and it is not always the shop's fault, because fakes enter the supply chain well before the retail counter and fool sellers too.

The good news is that the most common fakes are also the most detectable, and you do not need equipment. You need to know what to look at. These are the five checks I use, and the five fakes they catch most often.

Fake one: dyed howlite sold as turquoise

Genuine turquoise is genuinely scarce and priced accordingly, so the market fills the gap with howlite and magnesite, white porous stones with gray veining that absorb dye beautifully. Dyed a flat blue, they pass for turquoise at a glance, and dyed magnesite has been used as a turquoise substitute for close to a century.

The checks: real turquoise shows natural matrix, dark veining that is irregular, three-dimensional, and sunk into the stone, where fake veining often looks printed on the surface. Real turquoise varies in color across the piece; dyed howlite is suspiciously uniform. And the price is a check by itself. Genuine turquoise at costume-jewelry prices is not genuine turquoise. If you own a loose piece and want certainty, a cotton swab with acetone will lift dye from a dyed stone and do nothing to real turquoise.

Fake two: heat-treated amethyst sold as citrine

Natural citrine is uncommon, with a subtle golden, smoky champagne color. The bright orange “citrine” points and geodes filling shop shelves are overwhelmingly amethyst that has been baked until the purple turned orange. The tell is famous once you know it: a stark white base with burnt-orange tips. Natural citrine does not grow that way; baked amethyst does, because only the tips take the color while the base stays white. By most accounts in the trade, the large majority of commercial citrine is heated amethyst. This is one of those fakes so widespread that many sellers no longer think of it as faking. You are allowed to think otherwise, and to pay accordingly.

Fake three: glass sold as almost anything

Glass is the universal impostor. It plays obsidian, moldavite, aquamarine, clear quartz, and any stone with transparency. Three checks catch most of it. First, bubbles: tiny round air bubbles inside a stone, visible with a magnifying glass or a good phone camera, mean glass, full stop, because crystals do not trap round bubbles. Second, temperature: real quartz feels distinctly cold when it first touches your cheek or inner wrist, and warms slowly; glass starts warmer and warms fast. Third, perfection: natural stones carry wisps, veils, and irregularities. A large, flawless, water-clear sphere at a bargain price is glass wearing a name tag.

Fake four: molded moldavite

Moldavite deserves its own entry because the faking is industrial. Real moldavite is a natural impact glass found almost entirely in the Czech Republic, with a wrinkled, etched, matte texture, and it commands serious prices even for small pieces. The fakes are bottle-green glass pressed in molds, shiny, uniform, often with a repeating texture, sold cheap. The price is the first filter: a large moldavite for a small price is a fake with total certainty. The shine is the second: real moldavite's surface is sculptural and dull; molded glass gleams.

Fake five: opalite and other manufactured stones with natural-sounding names

Opalite is man-made glass with a milky blue glow. Goldstone is glass with copper flecks. Both are attractive, both are honest materials when sold under their real names, and both are routinely sold as moonstone, opal, or sunstone. The rule of thumb: real moonstone and sunstone glow from particular angles, from a depth inside the stone, because the optical effect comes from their internal structure. The manufactured glasses glow evenly from everywhere. If the shimmer has no direction, the stone has no history.

The five-minute shop routine

Put together, the routine looks like this. Check the price against the stone's real-world scarcity, and treat bargains on scarce stones as warnings. Look for bubbles in anything transparent. Look for the white base on orange points. Look for surface dye and printed-looking veining on blue stones. Ask the seller directly whether a stone is treated, and note whether the answer is straight. An honest seller answers plainly, and honest sellers are the single best fake-detection tool there is. Find one, and keep them.

These five cover the most common deceptions, but the full market is larger, which is why I put together a free 34-page guide covering 26 commonly faked stones, with the specific checks for each. You can get it at freeguide.thecrystalier.com. It costs nothing, and it has saved readers a great deal more than nothing.

The traditions described here are part of cultural and spiritual history. Crystals are not a treatment for any medical or psychological condition. Please read our full disclaimer.