Tourmaline is a fantastic stone for jewellery. She comes in a wide range of often unusual colours, most commonly is the green and this is probably the best choice of green stone for a special piece. Green stones are often fragile, like emerald or fluorite (so fragile we don't even touch it) but tourmaline is made of hardier stuff. Blue tourmaline, more of a teal green really, is a favourite of ours at the moment. As well as the beige shades, another personal fave. Tourmaline crystals sometimes grow bi-coloured so the stones colour changes from one to another.

Watermelon tourmaline: This is when the green and the pink tourmaline grow together in one crystal, sometimes with pink as the core and the green around it, just like a watermelon! 

Paraiba tourmaline: This is the rarest (so yes, the most expensive) shade of tourmaline. It is a pale electric blueish green. No other stone can hit this specific colour. Often included, so expensive and fragile! 

Fun 'fact': Tourmaline has a strange magnetic energy. It is said that it absorbs radiation so can help detoxify the body from things like your mobile phone. *scientific proof needed.

Colours: Most colours, green, black, blue, pink, brown, yellow, red.

Mohs scale: 7 - 7.5

Crystal Formation: Trigonal

Country of origin: Brazil, Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Belitung Island, Indonesia and Malawi.