The Fiery Beauty: Choosing Topaz For Your Jewellery Piece

One of the most popular gemstones used in fine jewellery today, topaz is known for its beautiful colours, ranging from warm and fiery golden palette, as in precious topaz, to a cool palette, as in white and blue topaz. The origin of the gemstone’s name is the Sanskrit word for fire, and in ancient times, this gemstone was associated with the sun due to its iridescent golden hue.

Scoring an eight on the Mohs Hardness Scale, this gemstone is durable and suitable for every day wear in pieces such as rings and bracelets, as well as earrings and necklaces. Topaz crystals form in larger sizes, making this beautiful gem reasonably easy to find in weights over 5 carats.

Topaz has perfect cleavage, which means it can be split cleanly by one hard knock. For this reason, jewellers take extra care when it comes to setting, faceting and polishing the stone, at times setting it in prongs or bezels, so there is less stress on the cleavage plane.

There is no denying the elegance of topaz and the way this gemstone can add extra interest and beauty to almost any outfit. Its rather wide colour palette, ranging from, brown to various tones and saturations of blue, green, yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple, as well as colourless, or white, topaz. Topaz is pleochroic, meaning that the gem can display different colours in different crystal directions. This wide colour palette makes it easy to match topaz pieces to most wardrobes. Here are some examples of the colour varieties of topaz:  

Precious Imperial Topaz

This precious variety of topaz can comes in hues ranging from golden orange to pinkish red and even purple. This is the most famous type of topaz, which comes from a single mine in Ouro Preto, Brazil, and Russia’s Ural mountains. The colour variations in topaz is caused by impurity elements or defects in its crystal structure rather than by an element of its basic chemical composition. The element chromium causes natural pink, red, and violet-to-purple colours in topaz. Imperfections at the atomic level in topaz crystal structure can cause yellow, brown, and blue colour.

White Topaz/Colourless Topaz

The most common type of topaz is white or colourless. At first glance, you might attribute its likeness to a diamond, however, professional jewellers will able to distinguish the two, since white topaz is less brilliant and less hard. However, it can still be a good accent stone for jewellery pieces.

Blue Topaz

Natural blue topaz often has a pale blue, almost colourless, kind of hue. However, further jewellery lab treatments that can include radiation and heat can darken the colour to create a deeper blue.

The blue topaz is also further categorised into three varieties, depending on how vivid the gemstone is.

One variety of blue topaz is Swiss Blue, where the hue is a highly saturated, bright blue. Sky Blue topaz is lighter and paler in hue and can resemble aquamarine. Lastly, London Blue topaz, the most valuable of the this spectrum, is most prizes, with alluring inky blue hues.

Topaz in Contemporary Jewellery

Topaz is a great gemstone to work with, due to its wide colour palette, saturated colours, and availability of material in larger carat weight. At Lizunova Fine Jewels, we love setting topaz into dramatic pieces, such as cocktail rings in rose or white gold, or pair it with platinum and diamonds in our unique bespoke pieces. All our contemporary jewels are thoughtfully designed and meticulously handcrafted in our Sydney workshop. To begin creating one-of-a-kind bespoke jewellery with topaz or other gemstones, contact us via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. In collaboration with you, our jewellery designer and founder Maria Lizunova will create a personalised bespoke jewellery piece, incorporating your ideas and wishes.

Shop our fine jewellery, such as rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets, as well as engagement and wedding rings online at www.lizunova.com or visit our Sydney CBD jewellery store at Chifley Plaza, 2 Chifley Sq Sydney 2000.