Green Tiger's Eye
Green tiger's eye is a treated natural material: tiger's eye, a chatoyant variety of quartz containing altered crocidolite (amphibole) fibres, that has been dyed green. Tiger's eye does not naturally occur in this vivid green; gemmological references list dyeing (sometimes after bleaching) as a treatment of tiger's eye, and the Japanese retailer Pascle states that its green tiger's eye is artificially dyed.
Products made with this material
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Full material guide
What the material is, where it comes from or how it is made, identification and care, from the cited sources.
Properties
| Material type | Treated natural material (dyed tiger's eye) |
| Base material | Tiger's eye: quartz with included, altered crocidolite fibres |
| Treatment | Dyed green; the colour is not natural |
| Chemical formula (quartz host) | SiO₂ |
| Mohs hardness | 6.5 to 7 |
| Specific gravity (tiger's eye) | 2.55 to 2.91 |
| Refractive index (tiger's eye) | 1.544 to 1.553 |
| Optical effect | Chatoyancy (silky moving bands) |
| Transparency | Opaque |
Origins & sources
The colour is produced by dyeing, so green tiger's eye has no natural deposit of its own. Its base material, tiger's eye, comes mainly from South Africa; other recorded sources include Western Australia, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Brazil, China, Namibia and the United States. Where the stones are dyed is not documented in the sources consulted; Pascle gives South Africa and Namibia as origins of its material.
Identification
Green tiger's eye keeps the fibrous structure and moving chatoyant bands of tiger's eye. The gemmologist R. Webster noted that many tiger's eye cabochons are stained and that vivid greens, blues and blacks are obviously stained; natural hawk's eye, the unaltered blue form, is only grayish to occasionally greenish blue. GIA notes that a qualified gemologist can detect dyed gems in most cases. Fibre-optic glass can imitate the chatoyancy of these materials but is a man-made product.
Care
Because the colour comes from dye, keep the stones away from solvents such as alcohol or acetone, which can remove many dyes, and from prolonged sunlight, which can make some dyes fade. Jewelers commonly recommend cleaning tiger's eye only with a polishing cloth rather than alcohol, steam or an ultrasonic cleaner, and note that it chips or breaks more readily than many gems when struck.
History
Not collected yet
Cultural meanings
The Japanese retailer Pascle says that green tiger's eye shares the meanings it gives to all colours of tiger's eye: because the "tiger's eye" was traditionally thought to see through everything, the stone is said to sharpen its wearer's insight, and the retailer associates it with luck in work and money.
Traditional beliefs
Not collected yet
Collected Oct 23, 2026
- GemRocks: Hawk's Eye & Tiger's Eye Central Michigan University (GemRocks) · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 OverviewPropertiesOrigins & sourcesIdentificationCare
- Tiger's Eye gemstone information Gemdat.org (Hudson Institute of Mineralogy) · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 OverviewPropertiesIdentification
- Tiger's Eye Value, Price, and Jewelry Information International Gem Society · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 PropertiesOrigins & sourcesIdentification
- An Introduction to Gem Treatments GIA · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 OverviewIdentificationCare
- Tiger's Eye: Mineral information, data and localities. Mindat.org (Hudson Institute of Mineralogy) · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 OverviewProperties
- グリーンタイガーアイ (Green Tiger's Eye) — supplier/trade claim Pascle (Japanese retailer) · Accessed Oct 23, 2026 OverviewOrigins & sourcesCultural meanings
