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When your customer buys a color change garnet you can tell them that it is like getting a mood ring! The color change is due to a freak of nature in this variety of garnet. It is a pyrope-spessartine species, that changes hue based upon the source of light. Depending on its position and what kind of light it is exposed to the gemstone’s color will change from red to blue. Rarer specimens will also change from red to green but the main color axis is red to blue. As Alexandrites also have this red to blue hue within their purple bodies, this type of color change garnet is also sometimes known as the Alexandrite Garnet.

Some people call this a mood stone because it displays so many different colors during the course of the day. In sunlight a tiny bit of red can be seen flashing from the depths of the stone. In daylight it may appear green, gray or even blue. Under direct light it appears as purple as a grape colored amethyst. In candlelight it has more of a bloody color.

However the ability for the stone to display different colors is not due to the wearer’s mood, although they are sold as mood rings by some retailers, it is due to light wavelengths. Typically one color is seen in light sources which are rich in the blue end of the spectrum like fluorescent or natural daylight, and another in light sources which is rich in red wavelengths like incandescent light.
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