Natural or Treated? How to Read a Crystal on Camera

Buying crystals online fails for one reason: you cannot handle the piece. A live sale fixes most of that, but only if you know what to look for while the seller turns the stone in front of the lens. Here is the checklist we use ourselves when we buy from the workshops in Donghai, and that you can use on our streams.

1. Ask for the light to move

Natural quartz, fluorite and obsidian have internal structure: veils, phantoms, colour zoning, rainbows along fractures. Glass is empty. When the seller tilts the piece under a lamp, look for depth. A sphere that looks identical from every angle is suspicious.

2. Look at the colour edges

Dyed agate and quartz concentrate colour in cracks and along the surface, so colour looks painted on at chips and drill holes. Natural colour sits in bands or clouds that run through the stone. Ask the seller to show the base of a tower or the drill hole of a pendant.

3. Weight tells the truth

We weigh every piece on camera. Quartz is roughly 2.65 g/cm³; glass is lighter, resin far lighter. If a 60 mm sphere weighs under 250 g, it is not quartz.

4. Bubbles mean glass

Round gas bubbles are the signature of melted material. Natural inclusions are needles, plates, clouds or fluid pockets with odd shapes. Ask for a close-up.

5. Know which treatments are normal

Heat-treated citrine (from amethyst), aura quartz (metal-coated), and stabilised turquoise are standard trade products. They are fine to buy as long as they are named. We say on camera when a piece is treated.

FAQ

Can you test a piece before I buy? Yes. Ask during the stream and we will weigh it, show it under a torch and check the drill hole on camera.

What if it arrives and is not as shown? Email us within seven days with photos. The item on camera is the item shipped, and if we got it wrong we make it right.