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August 30, 2026
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As seen in Vogue | Handmade in London | Hypoallergenic Materials | Secure Payments | Free Delivery UK & Worldwide | Shipped from UK
As seen in Vogue | Handmade in London | Hypoallergenic Materials | Secure Payments | Free Delivery UK & Worldwide | Shipped from UK
Moonstone is one of the most distinctive natural gemstones in fine jewellery. Known for its mesmerizing blue and silvery light that shifts as you move, it has fascinated gem enthusiasts, collectors, and jewellery lovers for centuries.
However, with so many synthetic imitations and mislabelled stones on the market today, finding genuine moonstone can be surprisingly tricky.
As a London-based handmade jeweller, I believe in complete transparency. Here I will break down what moonstone actually is, why it glows, how to test if yours is real, and how to choose a piece of moonstone jewellery that is built to last.
Moonstone is a gem variety of feldspar with microscopic layers of two different feldspars stacked inside it, and those layers are what make it glow.
Its formula is (Na,K)AlSi₃O₈, which makes it a sodium potassium aluminium silicate. Most moonstone is a variety of orthoclase, with thin layers of albite running through it. The two separated out as the stone cooled, in a process called exsolution, and settled into alternating sheets far too fine to see.
Here is the part that matters. Moonstone is a name for an optical effect, not for one single mineral. Several feldspars can produce that effect, which is why the word gets stretched across materials that are not quite the same thing. That stretching is where most of the confusion in the moonstone market comes from, and we will come back to it properly further down.
It is one of the natural stones we work with at Sarah Valley, and it is one of the more demanding ones to set well.
Property | Detail |
Mineral group | Feldspar, alkali feldspar series |
Formula | (Na,K)AlSi₃O₈ |
Status | A variety of orthoclase |
Crystal system | Monoclinic |
Colours | Colourless, white, grey, blue, peach, pink, green, brown |
Mohs hardness | 6.0 to 6.5 |
Cleavage | Perfect |
Fracture | Uneven to conchoidal |
Specific gravity | 2.54 to 2.66 |
Refractive index | 1.518 to 1.547 |
Lustre | Glassy, opalescent |
Streak | White |
Optical effect | Adularescence, sometimes chatoyancy |
Main sources | Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Madagascar, Australia, Armenia, Mexico, Norway, Poland, USA |
Other name | Hecatolite, after the goddess Hecate |
People searching for moonstone properties are usually after one of two things, so here is which is which.
Physical properties (measurable) | Metaphysical properties (traditional belief) |
Feldspar, Mohs 6 to 6.5, perfect cleavage | Linked with intuition and new beginnings |
Glow caused by orthoclase and albite layers | Connected with the Moon and its cycles |
Specific gravity 2.54 to 2.66, glassy lustre | Associated with emotional steadiness |
The left column is tested in a lab. The right column is cultural tradition. Both are covered on this page, and they are kept in separate sections so you can read whichever you came for.
The glow comes from light bouncing between alternating layers of orthoclase and albite inside the stone.
Light enters the polished dome, meets the boundaries between those layers, and scatters back out. Because the layers sit at a fixed angle inside the stone, the glow appears to float just beneath the surface and drift as you move. Gemmologists call it adularescence, and it is the reason the stone has its name.
It is worth saying what it is not. It is not a coating, it is not a reflection off the surface, and it is not the stone changing colour. Nothing about the stone changes. Only your angle to it does.
The thickness of the internal layers decides the colour of the glow.
Very thin albite layers scatter shorter wavelengths and give you blue. Thicker layers give white or silver. That is the whole mechanism, and it explains the entire moonstone price ladder in one sentence.
A strong blue glow floating over a colourless, transparent body is the top grade. It is genuinely uncommon. Historically the finest transparent blue material came from Myanmar. Most of what reaches the market now comes from Sri Lanka.
At the other end sits a cloudy white body with a faint silvery shimmer. Still real moonstone, still perfectly nice to wear, but a completely different thing from the top grade, and it should not cost the same.
A moonstone only glows properly if the cutter reads the layers correctly.
Those internal layers run in one direction. The dome of the cabochon has to be shaped so the glow sits centred and rises when you look straight down at it. Get the angle wrong and the glow slides off to one side, or only appears when you tilt the stone away from you.
So when you look at a piece, tilt it slowly under a normal lamp. If the glow arrives at the angle you would actually wear it, someone did their job. If you have to hunt for it, they did not.
Some moonstone shows a second effect entirely: a single bright line running across the dome, like a slit pupil.
That is chatoyancy, and it comes from fine parallel inclusions rather than from the layering. It is uncommon and rarely explained anywhere. Rarer still is asterism, where the stone shows a four-legged star instead of a single line.
Moonstone is one of three birthstones for June, alongside pearl and alexandrite.
That makes it a straightforward gift for a June birthday, and it is one of the more wearable birthstones on the list. Our birthstones by month guide sets out the full traditional and modern lists, and the birthstone jewellery range is built around them.
Moonstone is most often linked with Cancer, the sign ruled by the Moon, and after that with Pisces and Libra.
If that is the angle you like, we make zodiac earrings for Cancer, a Pisces bangle and a Libra set among others.
On the question of who should not wear moonstone, there is no gemmological or safety reason for anyone to avoid it. The traditions that name restrictions contradict each other and none carries any authority. The only real restrictions are practical, and they are all about protecting the stone rather than protecting you.
The honest answer comes in two halves that people usually mix together, so here they are separately.
Most people who buy moonstone buy it at the start of something.
A new job, a move, a first flat, the end of a relationship. It is the stone that gets chosen when someone wants to mark a change, which is why it turns up so often as a graduation present, a leaving gift or a wedding piece.
Some wear it because they believe in what it stands for. Others just like that the glow shifts every time the light does. Either way, the piece ends up meaning something because of when it was bought, and that is a good enough reason to own one.
Moonstone does not affect your hormones, your fertility, your menstrual cycle, your sleep or any physical condition, and there is no evidence that it does.
You will find all of those claims made confidently on other sites selling moonstone. They are not true, and under UK advertising rules a seller is not allowed to make them. We would rather say so plainly than repeat something that might lead someone to rely on a stone instead of a doctor.
If you are struggling with sleep or with your health, please see a GP. Wear the moonstone because you like it.
These ones are checkable, and they are the reason moonstone works so well in real jewellery.
It never looks the same twice. The glow changes with the light and the angle, so a moonstone piece has movement that a flat-coloured stone does not.
It goes with everything. A neutral body with a cool sheen suits silver, and peach and cream bodies suit warmer metals. It works against every skin tone.
It is inert against skin. The stone causes no reaction at all. Any irritation from jewellery comes from the metal.
It is a natural bridal stone. Soft, pale and glowing rather than sparkling, so it sits alongside a dress instead of competing with it.
Moonstone comes in a range of body colours, and the body colour is separate from the colour of the glow.
Body colour is the stone itself: colourless, white, grey, peach, pink, green or brown. Glow colour is the effect sitting inside it, usually blue or silvery white. A grey moonstone with a blue glow and a white moonstone with a blue glow are two different products, and product names often blur the two.
Blue moonstone is the top of the range. The best examples are transparent to near-colourless in the body with a strong blue glow that seems to float above nothing at all.
White moonstone is the everyday material. The body is milky and translucent, the glow is softer and more silver than blue. It is what most affordable moonstone jewellery uses, and there is nothing wrong with it as long as it is priced as what it is.
Peach moonstone has a warm apricot body and usually a gentler, creamier glow. It suits warm skin tones and gold-toned settings, and it pairs nicely with the softer stones in our gemstone bracelets.
Grey moonstone has a smoky body that makes the blue glow stand out more sharply by contrast. Green and brown bodies turn up less often and tend to be sold as collector material rather than jewellery stones.
Rainbow moonstone is a different mineral from classic moonstone, and this is the most useful thing in this article if you are about to buy something.
Classic moonstone is orthoclase, from the alkali feldspar side of the family. Rainbow moonstone is a plagioclase feldspar from the labradorite side. It is colourless and highly transparent, and its glow is a sharper, more colourful flash rather than the soft floating sheen of orthoclase moonstone.
Both are real stones. Both are lovely. The problem is entirely commercial. Search moonstone in any UK marketplace and you will find rainbow moonstone cabochons at under a fiver sitting in the same results as fine moonstone necklaces at two hundred pounds, all under one word.
So ask the seller which one they mean. A seller who can answer that question straight away is usually worth buying from. One who cannot, or who gets vague about it, is telling you something.
Four other things get sold as moonstone or mistaken for it, and one of them is not a stone at all.
Material | Look | Type of glow | Natural? | Hardness | How to tell |
Moonstone (orthoclase) | Milky to transparent body | Soft glow that floats and moves | Yes | 6 to 6.5 | Glow shifts with angle, faint internal cloudiness |
Rainbow moonstone | Colourless, very transparent | Sharper blue or multicoloured flash | Yes | 6 to 6.5 | Flash rather than sheen, whiter and clearer body |
Labradorite | Grey or dark body | Bright directional flash | Yes | 6 to 6.5 | Dull grey off-axis, dramatic on-axis |
Opal | Milky or dark body | Rainbow flecks and patches | Yes | 5.5 to 6.5 | Colour patches, not a single sheen |
Opalite | Even milky blue-white | Flat glow from every angle | No, it is glass | ~5.5 | Orange glow when backlit, often has bubbles |
Opalite is fake.
It is man-made glass and it is everywhere. The giveaway is simple: hold it up against a lamp. Opalite throws a warm orange or amber glow through the body. Real moonstone does not. Opalite also glows the same from every angle, where moonstone’s sheen moves as you turn it.
Opal is a different effect entirely.
It is hydrated silica, and its play-of-colour comes in patches and flecks rather than one drifting sheen.
The quick sorting rule: a soft glow that moves means moonstone. A sharp directional flash means labradorite or rainbow moonstone. Rainbow patches mean opal. An even glow from all angles, with orange when backlit, means glass.
The fastest check is movement. Real moonstone’s glow travels across the stone as you turn it, because the glow lives inside the layers rather than on the surface.
You will see it claimed that a real moonstone floats, or that sinking in water proves it is fake. That is nonsense. Every moonstone sinks. So does opalite. The water test tells you nothing at all.
If you are buying online and you cannot handle the stone, ask for a short video shot in daylight rather than under a spotlight. A spotlight makes everything glow. Window light does not, and you are welcome to ask us for one before buying anything from us.
Moonstone measures 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale and has perfect cleavage, which together make it one of the more fragile stones in regular jewellery use.
Almost nobody tells you the second half of that sentence. Search moonstone and you will find the hardness figure quoted everywhere, and the word cleavage almost nowhere. It matters more than the hardness does.
Hardness first. At 6, moonstone is softer than ordinary household dust, which contains quartz at 7. Over years of wear, a moonstone surface picks up fine scratches simply from being wiped and handled. This is normal and it is why older moonstone pieces sometimes look hazy.
Cleavage second. Moonstone splits cleanly along internal planes. A knock in the wrong direction can take a chip out or split the stone outright, even though nothing scratched it. Hardness protects against rubbing. Nothing protects against impact except keeping the stone away from impact.
That is not a reason to avoid moonstone. It is a reason to be deliberate about where you wear it.
Earrings are the safest home for moonstone. They hang clear of every surface, they never catch on a doorframe, and they hold the stone at eye level where the glow gets seen. A gemstone drop earring or a cluster style both work well.
Pendants and necklaces are almost as safe. The stone hangs free and moves against your neckline, which suits a stone whose glow depends on angle. Have a look at the gemstone necklaces to see how that sits.
Cuffs and bracelets are a considered choice rather than an automatic one. Wrists take knocks all day. A moonstone cuff works if the stone sits within the body of the piece rather than standing proud of it.
Rings are where moonstone struggles most. Hands hit everything, and a stone that splits along cleavage planes on the most exposed joint of your body will not last. Jewellers who do set moonstone in rings use a bezel, which wraps metal around the edge of the stone to absorb knocks. We do not make rings in any material, and moonstone is a good illustration of why.
Warm water, a drop of washing-up liquid and a soft cloth. Rinse it, dry it properly, and that is the whole method.
There is a widely repeated question online asking why moonstone cannot get wet. The premise is wrong. Moonstone can get wet. Rain, a hand wash, a splash at the sink, none of it does any harm.
What genuinely damages moonstone is sudden temperature change. Ultrasonic cleaners and steam cleaners are the real danger, because the shock travels straight along those cleavage planes and can crack the stone from the inside. Never use either.
Keep it away from chlorine, bleach and household cleaners. Put jewellery on after perfume and hairspray, not before. Store pieces separately in a soft pouch so harder stones cannot scratch the surface, and consider a jewellery set box rather than a shared drawer.
There are two reasons a moonstone loses its glow, and only one of them can be undone.
Surface film. Hand cream, soap and skin oils build a thin layer over the polish and stop light getting in cleanly. This is by far the most common cause, and warm soapy water fixes it completely.
Surface scratching. At Mohs 6, years of ordinary wear leave a network of fine scratches that scatter light before it reaches the layers. This does not wash off. A jeweller can re-polish the stone, and it is worth doing on a piece you love.
If a clean brings the glow back, it was film. If it does not, it is wear, and re-polishing is the answer.
Four checks separate a piece you keep from one that disappoints you.
Glow across the whole dome, not confined to one band at the edge.
Glow at wearing angles. Earrings hang vertically. Ask for a photo or video held the way you would wear it.
A body that suits the glow. Cleaner, more transparent bodies carry blue glow best. Milky bodies give a softer silver sheen and should cost less.
A seller who names the material. Orthoclase moonstone or rainbow moonstone. If they will not say, assume the cheaper one.
If you are unsure what suits your colouring or your wardrobe, book a free jewellery consultation and we will talk it through before you spend anything.
Moonstone spans an enormous price range, and size has very little to do with it.
At the bottom sit tumbled stones and loose cabochons, often a few pounds each, usually rainbow moonstone or milky white material. Above that come mass-produced strung bracelets. Above those sit independent handmade pieces, where you are paying for stone selection and hours of hand work. At the top sit branded fine jewellery pieces with precious metal settings.
Three things move a piece up that ladder: glow quality first, then which material it actually is, then the setting and the making. Notice that stone size is not on the list.
Anyone telling you a moonstone is expensive because it is large is selling you the wrong thing. Anyone charging a fine-jewellery price for cloudy white material with a weak sheen is doing the same. If you want a broader view of where independent makers sit, our round-up of UK jewellery brands is a fair place to start.
Moonstone is one of the best bridal stones there is, and the reason is that it glows rather than sparkles.
A dress already has movement and light in it. A faceted stone competes with that. Moonstone sits beside it. It also carries the new-beginnings meaning without anyone needing to explain it, which is about as close to a perfect wedding stone as you get.
Have a look at the wedding jewellery range, or the graceful bridal set if you want earrings and necklace together. Our guide to choosing between crystal and pearl wedding earrings covers the same decision from another angle.
For June birthdays, our birthday jewellery gift guide has more options, and there are separate guides on choosing a jewellery gift for a woman and on the woman who already has everything.
Practical reassurance: we ship free worldwide by Royal Mail, with orders over £2,500 upgraded to DHL Express automatically. Details are on the shipping page, and the returns policy covers you if it is not right.
Yes, at the ear or the neckline where it stays clear of impact. Daily wear on a hand is where moonstone suffers, because rings take constant knocks and abrasion that this stone cannot absorb.
It can. Water does no harm at all. The real risks are ultrasonic cleaners, steam cleaners and sudden temperature change, which can crack the stone along its cleavage planes. Chlorine should also be avoided.
Warm water with a drop of washing-up liquid and a soft cloth, then dry it properly. Never use ultrasonic or steam cleaners, and keep bleach, household cleaners and perfume away from the stone.
Either a film of hand cream and soap sitting over the polish, which washes off, or fine surface scratching from years of wear, which does not. If cleaning does not restore the glow, a jeweller can re-polish it.
Yes. It has perfect cleavage, so an impact in the wrong direction can split it, and sudden temperature change can crack it from the inside. Both are avoidable with sensible wear and cleaning.
June. It shares the month with pearl and alexandrite, and it is generally the most affordable and most wearable of the three.
Most often Cancer, which is ruled by the Moon, then Pisces and Libra. Different traditions give different lists and none is authoritative, so treat it as preference rather than rule.
There is no gemmological or safety reason for anyone to avoid moonstone. The only genuine limits are practical ones about protecting a relatively fragile stone from impact.
Traditionally it is associated with new beginnings rather than luck specifically. That is a cultural association, not an effect, and no stone influences outcomes.
No activation is needed, and nothing you do changes the stone physically. Various traditions suggest moonlight or water rituals. Treat them as personal practice, and skip anything that involves soaking the stone for long periods.
It ranges from a few pounds to several hundred. Glow quality drives the price far more than size does, followed by whether it is orthoclase moonstone or rainbow moonstone, then the setting and craftsmanship.
Sarah Mubarrak is the founder of Sarah Valley, a handmade jewellery brand based in the UK. She designs unique pieces using natural gemstones, crystals, and pearls, all crafted by hand with skin-safe materials. Inspired by nature, Sarah creates jewellery for women who want to feel confident and stand out.