What Stones Are Chatoyant

Which Gemstones exhibit Chatoyancy? Many species can exhibit chatoyancy including tourmaline, apatite, beryl, actinolite, demantoid garnet, scapolite, sillimanite and quartz among others but only chrysoberyl can be called simply ‘cat’s eye’, the others must be prefixed by the species name. Tiger’s eye quartz.

What does a Chatoyant mean?

chatoyant • \shuh-TOY-unt\ • adjective. : having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light.

What color is chatoyancy?

It has greenish yellow color that makes it even more similar to feline eyes. Chatoyancy is traditionally attributed to tiny needles of exsolution rutile, although other mineral species can be also involved. These inclusions are so thin that they are not distinguishable to the naked eye and even through 10x loupe.