Smoky Quartz Crystal Bracelet Bead Size:6 mm It is the softest

It is the softest

iron gives the deep black

Made by Kathmandu Valley craftspeople in the same broom-grass-and-binding tradition as the larger household brooms

Honest naming: some very dark material is laboratory-irradiated

This is the Kathmandu Valley version

Smoky Quartz Crystal Bracelet Bead Size:6 mm It is the softestSmoky quartz clear crystal darkened to woodsmoke brown by natural radiation deep underground, and the stone Scotland cut from its mountains and called cairngorm. The same mineral as amethyst, in a smokier register. The colour is dissolved through the crystal, not laid on it: natural gamma radiation in the host rock acting over long ages on traces of aluminium in the quartz. So the stone stays translucent, champagne to near black, with clarity still