Can Aventurine Go In Water? (ANSWER With Simple Explanation)

Yes, you can put aventurine in water. That being said, we don’t recommend it, as it can still damage your stone.

Let us explain.

Why Can Aventurine Go In Water? (Or Not?)

What Do Collectors Need To Know?

Whenever you are working with a specimen, it is really important to know what the stone is made of, how it reacts, it’s hardness, and whether it is water soluble.

The reason we want to know the composition of the stone is that we can use that information to trouble shoot what will happen (or not) when we put it in water.

The reason we want to understand the hardness of the stone is that it will help tell us whether water is likely to do damage to the stone quickly (softer on the Moh’s hardness scale can mean more likely to suffer damage in water).

And when it comes to water, solubility is a no brainer. If your stone is really soluble in water, this is a stone that you wouldn’t even douse just to rinse it off.

What Is Aventurine?

Aventurine is a form of quartz, with a Moh’s hardness of 6-7.

Aventurine is often green, but you can find it in other colors (like orange, yellow, or gray).

Other collectors will argue with you about whether yellow aventurine is really lemon quartz or citrine.

Aventurine gets its colors from mineral inclusions (meaning impurities). So the base of the stone is silicone dioxide (like quartz), and then other minerals or materials are mixed in with it.

These impurities often look as they they are suspended in the substance, rather than just change the color of the substance.

This is what makes aventurine different and unique as people argue about whether a specific color is one kind of quartz or another.

The impurities come in many kinds, from fuchsite, lepidolite, and hematite.

To our knowledge, aventurine is not water soluble (like selenite).

What Do Aventurine’s Characteristics Tell Us About Whether It Should Go In Water?

Due to the fact that aventurine is fairly hard and not particularly water soluble, we don’t see a problem at all with getting this stone wet.

You should not worry if you need to wash it. Run it under the tap and buff it with a soft cloth without worry.

However, this is not to say that we recommend that you soak this stone in water for any extended period of time, or that you soak it in salt water.

We don’t. We definitely recommend against soaking aventurine in water baths for any significant period of time.

Rusting/Yellowing

The thing about stones that gain their colors from impurities and inclusions is that these inclusions after often substances that will react with water.

Take iron, as an example.

When you put a stone that contains iron in water frequently, that material will start to produce rust.

Over time, the small incremental rusting will give a beautiful stone a dull or yellowish look, and in extreme cases, can start to turn the stone reddish or brown.

Encourages Cracks and Fractures

While your stone may look perfect and smooth, it is not.

Just about every stone in your collection or that you will ever collect has micro-sized cracks and fissures in its surface.

This allows water molecules into the material, at a level that you cannot see or wipe away.

When the water molecules get into those cracks, the molecules encourage the cracks to widen.

This is especially the case if water is bringing salt molecules in with it.

You might not notice the cracks widening in your material, because they are too small for you to see, but you will notice when your stone breaks apart at a time that you don’t expect it.

Permanent Changes To The Appearance Of The Stone

Soaking a finished, beautiful stone in a water bath is likely to harm the finish.

Many stones are buffed with oils or a polish.

When you put these stones in water, especially for a long time, the water encourages the polish to leave the surface of your material.

Your stone may come out of the bath without its beautiful shiny finish. It may look rougher, or dull.

It may not even be the same color as when you put it in the water.

To return your stone to its previous beauty, you may need to buff and polish it again, or even grind off the exterior to start the process again.

In General, Soaks For Aventurine Are A Bad Idea

In general, we recommend against putting minerals and crystals in the water with you, and also in your water before you drink it.

The fact is, you don’t know with any certainty unless you get a test done for the chemical composition of your stone, what it is exactly.

Just because your stone isn’t yellow, doesn’t mean that the stone doesn’t contain asbestos.

Just because your stone isn’t green, doesn’t mean that the stone doesn’t carry copper.

Your stone might contain mercury.

While it is unlikely that a significant amount of these toxic substances will leech out of the stone, sufficient to do major damage, we still wouldn’t want to be drinking water that contained trace amounts of those substances.

And in the end, just about every stone of every hardness, regardless of potential toxicity, becomes more vulnerable to cracking if you soak it in water for extended periods.

It might be the habit and practice of people you follow and respect to soak their crystals in water.

That’s their right. Their stones, their choice.

But we choose not to soak them unless the soak is necessary (like if you did an acid bath and you need to make sure that acid is all gone).

If you do have to get your aventurine wet to clean it, make sure to dry it out completely, and make sure the water does not sit in any cracks or corners of the piece.

This will help you avoid irreversible damage, and preserve both the beauty and value of your stones.