Turquoise Blog — Oil and Wax

Even though turquoise makes for breathtaking jewelry, this sedimentary mineral is relatively soft and porous. The softness causes it to easily fracture or chip. Its porous allows it to discolor, stain and fade. Historically, less than about 10% of all excavated turquoise has the hardness and density to be considered gem quality. The rest needs some form of “help” to be considered jewelry quality. For thousands of years, people have treated turquoise. With high quality turquoise increasingly harder to find, more advanced techniques has been developed to “enhance” this stone. We will go through each of the methods for processing...