Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez , Ashley Leavy and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #12 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Citrine meaning, including:

Working with Citrine during the Solstice

Tapping into the spirit of celebration with Citrine

Harnessing Citrine energy to unlock your full potential

Plus, tune in for a look at whether or not natural Citrine is superior to heat-treated Citrine!

 

Tune in now for a deeper look at Citrine meaning!

 

Podcast Transcript:

Crystal Confab Podcast Introduction: Are you just starting with crystals? Or maybe you have a whole collection, but aren't sure how to use them? Join 4 crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for crystal confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.

Ashley Leavy: Hello, and welcome to another amazing episode of the crystal confab podcast. I'm Ashley Leavy joined by Nicholas Pearson, Adam Berlay, and Kyle Perez. And we are so excited to be chatting with you today about, I think, one of all of our favorite crystals, citrine. But even though this is one of our favorites, it is also a highly controversial stone for one big reason that many of you can probably already guess. Kyle, what is that controversy over citrine?

Kyle Perez: Well, I think we all know it's natural versus heat treated. Those terms will always come up for citrine, but, weirdly, they don't come up for other minerals. And I just want to start by saying, if you have a really nice ruby or sapphire, maybe even an emerald or topaz, it is more likely than not, especially in jewelry form, that it has gone through some form of heat treatment or irradiation. So it's actually really important to know off the cuff straightaway that so many crystals and minerals go through the heat process. It is to clean them up, make them a nicer color, change their color.

All of these things happen, and it's less out of malice and more out of need. It's more out of desperation. Right? There's not enough of it. There's more desire for this.

So it has been happening for decades. It's not something that's new to the business, and it's not something that I think we should be so up in arms about. Yes. There is some bad heat treatment that does happen to our poor amethyst, and it can make it a bit crumbly and a bit sad, but if the heat treatment is done correctly, it's beautiful. And what the heat treated citrine actually represents is something that forms naturally, which is Madeira Citrine.

If you've ever seen natural Madeira Citrine, I have a couple of pieces that kind of replicate that sort of color. I don't know if it's gonna work very well because I'm on my phone this week. Madeira actually means wood in Portuguese, and so it has that orangey brown wood tone that forms naturally through the heating and the radiation that happens below the Earth's surface. So it's gonna have iron in it and likely trace elements of aluminum too. It has been heated to a certain point, and that's where we get that beautiful range of color and tone from citrine.

There are 2 really important points that separate natural versus heat treated to actually see whether or not one is all of the other, and it's dichroism. Dichroism is the play of 2 different colors or at least 2 colors. And what you will see with citrine is one color when you look at it down one axis, and then we call this the c axis when you're looking directly down the point, and you'll see a different tone. This is a beautiful African citrine coming from Zambia, nice and light. And what happens is that it just shows you that the crystal is natural.

It has an orientation, and that shows that natural citrine side. Your heat treated citrine will very not show the dichroism. It's gonna show 1 rich, strong color, generally more orangey, generally more warm in its tone, generally stronger and more vibrant, and that's how I like to break down and separate them energetically. I think both of them have their place.