Citrine is yellow quartz, and the shade it takes is the whole difference between one piece and the next — a pale lemon that reads almost clear, through to a deep golden orange that looks lit from inside.
Reading the yellow
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Lemon and ice-clear citrine are the palest. They look almost like clear quartz until light comes through them.
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Golden and orange citrine carry the color on the surface as well as through it.
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Faceted pieces catch light in flat planes, so a small bead reads larger than it is.
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Pyramid-cut and square-cut beads hold a corner to the light and flash once on every turn of the wrist.
Several strands here pair citrine with tiger eye, green jade, or clear quartz, which shifts the yellow warmer or cooler depending on what sits beside it.
The stone of the sun
Citrine has been read as a stone of warmth and gain for a long time — sunlight kept on the body. In this collection it usually arrives with a companion: a guardian lion, or the pixiu that gathers rather than guards. The pixiu pieces are where most of that intent is carried.
Wearing it
Yellow quartz fades if it lives in strong sun, so keep a citrine strand off a window ledge. Otherwise it is as durable as any quartz.
Choose the depth of yellow first. The pale ones stack; the deep ones show.
