Is Aventurine Toxic? (Read This Before You Buy It)

Yes, aventure is considered toxic. That being said, it is not considered dangerous.

Confusing?

We’ll explain.

Is Aventurine Toxic? (Read This Before You Buy It)

First, What Does It Mean For a Mineral To Be Considered Toxic?

A material or substance is considered toxic if it could cause serious harm or death to a person or animal if it got inside the body.

Use a little common sense, and you’d realize that this definition could apply to a great many things that we eat and drink, yet are are not considered “toxic.” (Like water, for example).

Just keep this in mind as we move through the analysis.

Next, You Need To Know What Is In The Mineral That Makes It Toxic

Most people have no idea what their special healing crystal of made up of. They know it has a cool name (like strawberry quartz) and that it is a pretty color or texture (like velvet malachite).

They might not realize that it contains copper (like malachite), asbestos (like Tiger Eye), or mercury (like cinnabar).

Aventurine is a form of quartz. Though it is often green, it can come in various colors (orange, brown, yellow, or even blue. Various elements or other materials give the quartz is color, such as hematite or goethite.

Aventurine is the greenish color because it contains inclusions of fuchsite. It may also contain other metals like aluminum.

Quartz, which is the main component of aventurine, is made up of silicon and oxygen. Without even having to address the inclusions which create the color, we know that silicon is pretty bad for humans.

While people are happy to get surgical silicon implant procedures, just about everyone agrees that its a bad idea to inject silicon into the body.

Silicon when it gets into the body can cause all kinds of problems, including death. Breathing silicon is a classic way for individuals to become sick and suffer from respiratory illnesses (siliconosis).

The material which creates the beautiful greenish color of aventurine is fuchsite, which is a chromium rich variety of the mineral muscovite.

Chromium is another material which humans do not want to consume or otherwise get into their bodies, as it can cause some serious health issues as well.

Depending on the color of aventurine, there could be any number of other elements that make up the inclusions that give it its color.

Sometimes you might not even know what is it there, even if you have an expert give you their best guess.

Essentially, because we know what aventurine is made up of, we know that it is a toxic material.

The real question: is aventurine dangerous because of it’s chemical makeup?

You’ll see on other websites that quartz is considered to be an extremely high toxicity risk.

But the toxicity risk is not the end of the discussion.

Quartz is one of the most popular crystals to handle and to make jewelry with.

And you don’t really hear of anyone succumbing to quartz related illnesses resulting from their jewelry.

The thing about quartz is that it is a really stable material. It is pretty hard (around a 7 on the Moh’s scale), it isn’t really soluble, and doesn’t react violently.

While a chemical might be terribly dangerous, it has to have some way to get inside the human body.

And because quartz does not dissolve, it does not crumble, and doesn’t react, it is pretty hard for us humans to ingest it or breathe it.

Now, if we cut or polish aventurine, then we run the risk of breathing in the silicon bearing dust or otherwise getting it in our nose, eyes, or mouth.

But absent doing something that creates particulates for us to breath or swallow, it is pretty darn difficult to become sick or die from exposure to aventurine.

This is why it is not considered dangerous as long as you handle it responsibly, despite its high toxicity risk.

Responsible Handling of Aventurine

As noted above, aventurine shouldn’t do anything to damage you unless you aren’t responsible.

Here are some ways that we do not recommend handling aventurine:

grinding or polishing or cutting or mining the material without protective gear (like a mask and goggles)
grinding up aventurine to mix with water or other liquids to drink

Otherwise, we aren’t concerned.

While it generally isn’t a good idea to place your precious crystals in water for an extended period of time (do to the risk of the crystal breaking apart), it is safe to put it in the bath with you.

You can hold it in your hand, and you can sleep with it. Just don’t drink it or eat it or breath it.

Why Shouldn’t You Soak Aventurine in Water?

Long water baths can be pretty bad for aventurine, especially if you add salt to the water.

This sucks, because a lot of crystal practitioners preach and also practice the cleansing of stones by sitting them in water or in salt water for extended periods of time.

The reason this isn’t a good idea is that over time, water molecules can infiltrate microscopic cracks in the crystal, and slowly widen them.

We don’t mean to say that putting your crystal in water will make it break apart immediately.

But the water baths will encourage the growth of cracks from microscopic to something observable.

These cracks will also make the stone less likely to survive intact if it is handled roughly or dropped.

If there are metals in the aventurine (inclusions for example), they can start to rust and cause yellowing or even reddish-brown stains to develop.

In general, we like our pretty stones to stay that way.

Thus if we want to wash them with water, we do briefly, and then buff them with a soft cloth if it is possible.

If the pieces are jagged and cannot be dried with a cloth, we sit them on a cloth and let them air dry, rotating them now and again to encourage any water hiding in cracks to drop out and evaporate.

Wrap Up: Is Aventurine Toxic?

In summary, aventurine (like many crystals and minerals) is pretty toxic if you plan on ingesting it or breathing it.

But assuming you do neither of those things, there is little concern about handling it or wearing it.