MALAIA GARNET              

Malaia Garnet

Malaia – a painful name for this unusual gem from East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya)that is sometimes also found on the neighboring Red Island of Madagascar. It means“rejected” or “outcast” in Swahili. So it was a difficult childhood; despised, surrounded by more well-known and therefore more desirable stones, malaia has been recognized only recently. But fashion changes and this gem’s discrete beauty has endured and is seen today as rare and very precious. A hybrid garnet, her color, rich with chrome and vanadium marks her out from her sisters and can also grant her the attractive ability to change her color according to the light. This African beauty whose orange sometimes merges with pink, is now so sought after that finding a stone that is not only large but truly beautiful in quality and color is something only the real connoisseurs can manage
(Chapter from the Book “Gemstones. Terra Connoisseur” by Vladyslav Yavorskyy)