African Turquoise Jasper, Matte, Dyed, Smooth Round in sizes 6mm & 8mm Strand. Priced Per Strand

African Turquoise Jasper, Matte, Dyed, Smooth Round Beads, 6mm & 8mm Sizes.

This price is for one strand 15 to 16 inches long. 

6mm bead strands have 60 to 65 pieces.

8mm bead strands have 43 to 48 pieces. 

African Turquoise is not turquoise at all, but it is a spotted teal Jasper from Africa. It is often treated to give it that rich blue-green color we love about real turquoise. The matrix in African Turquoise Jasper with its inclusions of black lines and dots resembles the matrix of Turquoise.

African Turquoise Jasper is usually light bluish to green in color. It can look very similar to Variquoise, a unique combination of variscite and turquoise found in Utah and Nevada.

Jasper is a member of the chalcedony family. It is usually an opaque stone with a solid color or an irregular display of colors caused by various mineral impurities. Its colors are usually red, yellow, brown, or green in color and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron inclusions. It often contains an abundance of impurities, and therefore some regard it as a rock instead of a mineral. Patterns arise during the consolidation process forming flow and depositional patterns in the original silica rich sediment or ash. The Jasper name means "spotted or speckled stone".

Jasper is known to have been a favorite gem in the ancient world; its name can be traced back in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Assyrian, Greek and Latin. Jasper in mentioned many times in the Bible. Green jasper was used to make bow drills between 4th and 5th millennium BC.

Hardness 6.5-7 

These beads are dyed with the introduction of coloring agent into a gemstone to give it new color, intensify present color or improve color uniformity. 

The source of these beads is South Africa and they are cut, drilled and polished in China.

Matte beads have a velvety or frosted surface, rather than a shiny or reflective surface. These stones undergo additional tumbling that require knowledge of the material and skill. Each stone type requires a different amount of time in the tumbler depending on the material's hardness and characteristics. The matte finish also creates a variation in color from the traditional finish of the bead.