Red Jasper Beads
Red jasper beads are opaque, fine grained quartz colored a deep brick red by iron oxide, one of the oldest and most worked stones in jewelry. It is the plainest and most even of the jaspers, which is why it has been a staple bead for thousands of years. This collection holds natural red jasper and brecciated red jasper in a range of finishes and shapes for bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
Appearance
Plain red jasper is a solid brick to oxblood red, sometimes with faint darker swirls or small black specks, and it is one of the most uniform stones on the site from bead to bead. Brecciated red jasper is the same stone broken and healed: red fragments cemented together with grey, white and clear quartz, so each bead carries a web of pale veins over the red. Strands vary in how much veining shows and in whether the red leans orange or brown.
A polished finish gives the red a deep, slightly waxy shine; a matte finish turns it a soft terracotta that suits earthy and men's designs; a faceted cut adds a little flash to an otherwise quiet stone. At 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale, red jasper is hard enough for daily wear and needs no special care beyond a wipe with a soft cloth.
Formation and origin
Jasper is chalcedony, a microcrystalline quartz, that grew with a heavy load of mineral impurities, up to a fifth of the stone, which is what makes it opaque. It forms where silica rich water fills cracks and cavities in volcanic and sedimentary rock or slowly replaces the rock itself, and fine particles of hematite trapped in the quartz give red jasper its color. Brecciated jasper records a second event: the hardened stone was shattered by faulting or settling and the fractures were later filled with clear quartz. Red jasper is mined in India, Brazil, Madagascar, South Africa, Russia and the American West.
Pairings
Black onyx beads: solid black against brick red, the classic pairing for men's bracelets, and the two are the same hardness.
Hematite beads: metallic grey spacers that pick up the iron in the jasper and add weight to a strand.
Tiger's eye beads: golden brown chatoyance beside the flat red, a warm earth-toned combination.
Meaning and Metaphysical Beliefs
Red jasper has long been carved into amulets: the ancient Egyptians cut it into the tyet, the knot of Isis, and placed it with the dead, and it was prized by the Greeks and Romans for seals and talismans. In metaphysical belief red jasper is associated with endurance, stamina and steadiness, and it is placed with the root chakra. These are traditional beliefs, not claims of physical effect.
