July Birthstone

Ruby

Ruby is the July birthstone and is highly desired for its gorgeous red hue. Ruby gemstones are a variety of corundum, one of the hardest minerals on Earth; just below diamonds on the Mohs scale. Rubies get their fiery color from trace elements such as chrome, iron, titanium or vanadium. Used throughout history for royal embellishment, the ruby is associated with nobility even in metaphysical beliefs. It is seen as a powerful stone promoting passion in all endeavors.

July - Ruby - Cancer (June 21 - July 22)

The bright transparent ruby is the official birthstone for a loving, protective and shrewd Cancer. Known as a gemstone of nobles, ruby brings freedom, passion and vitality. Possessing the Camelot-inspired properties of devotion, love, strength, honor, determination and leadership makes this stone a good choice for the royal at heart. Ruby's properties of loyalty, passion, honor and determination can turn around Cancer's habit for crabby moodiness. By wearing a ruby, you can enjoy an added spark of light that will defeat emotional storms on all levels with love and strength.

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Ruby Gemstone Properties

The queen of gems, deep red ruby is the rarest and most valuable of gemstones. Rubies have been so loved by royalty, they have always included them in their insignias and famous jewelry, but rubies actually have humble beginnings. Most deposits are still worked in the primitive way they've been worked for centuries. They are panned from rivers and picked out by hand from the other minerals around them. Their beauty is only skin deep. In their natural rough form, they are dull greasy-looking stones. But cut and polished, their high luster is dazzling (comparable to diamonds), and their rich red color is pleochroic. (Pleochroic is color that varies when you view it from different directions.) The ruby beads in Fire Mountain Gems' hand-faceted strands are pale shimmering red on the outside edge deepening to a vibrant deep red at their center. In cabochons and faceted stones, those rich red colors shimmer in all directions. Expect a hush to spread through the room when you wear this gemstone of quintessential beauty. Ruby, queen of gems, thou art still fairest of all the fair gemstones.
 

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