Dolce's birthstone of the month: Turquoise

03 Dec Dolce's birthstone of the month: Turquoise

[click “Play”,Dolce’s Beau Staley discusses turquoise]

This is your month, Telluride’s Sagittarii and Capricorns. And your birthstone, December babies, is turquoise – also blue topaz and Tanzanite. (Guess December is big on alliteration.)

But turquoise is the most popular and the oldest of December birthstones, found on artifacts dating back 5000 years in ancient Egypt (the tomb of Tutankhamen was filled with turquoise bling and Cleopatra used the ground up stone in her eye paint), Sumeria and Mesopotamia. Turquoise” means “Turkish Stone,” in French and France is where the first deposits were found in the ancient world, before the first mines in Egypt. Turkey is the route the gemstone took when first introduced into Europe.

Thousands of years later, turquoise became a sacred stone among Tibetans and Native Americans, used by shaman in rituals. Both cultures believed turquoise promoted physical and emotional well-being and helped build trust and understanding within a community. Native Americans in the Southwest also used turquoise as money, believing the stone brought animals to hunters and riches to their warriors.

Which brings us close to home and the fashion flash. As with the length of skirts and the height of a pair of shoes, stones fall in and out of fashion. This year, according to Dolce Jewels, turquoise is back in: sleek and refined, rough and refined, and in a range of colors from sky blue to green. And we are not talking about your mother’s pawn.

Simon Alcantara uses natural materials such as wood and bone in combination with turquoise to create pieces that blends the exotic with the whimsical. Colorado native Joni Gotthelf mixes turquoise with pearls and laboradorite. And award-winning designer Pamela Froman features the stone in pieces made of multi-colored metal and rare stones.

To learn more about the properties of turquoise, where the best is found,  and how to care for the stone, click the “play” button and listen to Dolce’s Beau Staley’s interview.