Crystal Care Guide
Crystal care basics, a stone library beginning with Bloodstone, and stress-buster mantras.
Introduction
Welcome to the Crystal Care Guide, the home of every stone we feature on Crystal Mondays. Each week our Crystal of the Week post introduces one stone, and this page is where that stone takes up permanent residence: what it is, the traditions it carries, and how to look after it. New entries are added in the same format every Monday, so over time this page grows into a small library you can return to whenever a stone in your collection needs care or a refresher.
Good care is simpler than it is often made to sound. Crystals are natural materials, each with its own hardness and temperament, and most of what they ask is gentle handling, a soft place to rest, and keeping the harsh things — strong chemicals, hard knocks, long hours of blazing sun — away from the stones that cannot take them. The care basics below apply across your whole collection, and every stone entry that follows carries its own specific notes.
Caring for Your Crystals
Cleaning. Everyday dust comes off with a soft, dry cloth. Sturdy stones in the quartz family—clear quartz, amethyst, citrine, and their kin, which sit around 7 on the hardness scale—can also be washed in lukewarm water with a drop of mild soap, rinsed, and patted dry. Softer stones should never be scrubbed or soaked; a wipe with a barely damp cloth is all they need, and all they can take.
Cleansing. In crystal tradition, stones are cleansed to clear the energy they have picked up from handling and heavy rooms. The gentle methods suit nearly every stone: passing a stone through the smoke of sage, palo santo, or incense; resting it on a selenite plate or in a selenite bowl overnight; or leaving it out under moonlight. Salt is an older method and a strong one, but use it with care—salt can scratch softer stones and work its way into cracks, so keep it for hard, polished pieces only, and never leave a stone buried in salt for days.
Charging. Many people set their stones out under the full moon to charge, and moonlight is safe for every stone in your collection. Sunlight is the stronger and riskier. Option: amethyst, rose quartz, fluorite, celestite, kunzite, and opal can all fade with long sun exposure, so give sun-charged stones a short morning visit rather than a full day on the sill.
Storing. Stones keep best the way jewelry does: soft pouches or a lined box, with harder stones kept from rubbing against softer ones. A quartz point rolling loose in a bag will scratch a piece of fluorite or selenite riding beside it. Points and clusters keep their tips when they rest upright or wrapped, and a selenite bowl makes a good home base for the stones you handle most.
Stones that should stay out of water. Selenite, malachite, pyrite, hematite, lapis lazuli, turquoise, fluorite, and calcite should not be soaked or held under running water—some dissolve or dull, some rust or crack along their natural lines. Wipe these with a dry or barely damp cloth instead.
Fragile stones. Handle selenite, kyanite, fluorite, opal, and labradorite with a little extra care: they can chip or split along their natural cleavage if they are dropped or knocked against harder stones.
A note on traditions. The associations in the stone entries below are the traditional ones carried in crystal lore, offered as background and as part of the stones' stories. They are not medical claims, and no stone on this page is presented as a treatment for anything. Care for your stones, enjoy what they mean to you, and let your own tradition have the last word.
Stone Library
Each entry follows the same shape: what the stone is, the week it was featured, its traditional associations, its own care notes, and where to find it in the shop.
Bloodstone — Crystal of the Week, Monday, October 26, 2026
What it is. Bloodstone is a dark green chalcedony, a member of the quartz family, flecked and veined with red jasper—spots of iron-rich red against deep green stone. Its old name is heliotrope, from Greek words for the sun and turning, after an ancient belief that the stone, set in water, turned the sun's reflection red. The green is the earth in this stone, and the red is its spark: it has the look of something gathered from a forest floor with the lifeblood still in it.
Its week. Bloodstone was chosen for the Hunter's Moon, which peaked in the small hours of October 26 in Taurus. One of the full moon's oldest names is the Blood Moon, from the hunting season that named the moon itself, and bloodstone is that moon's namesake stone—the stone for standing guard over what you gathered all year as the season turns toward winter.
Traditional associations. Bloodstone is traditionally called the courage stone, carried for strength, steady ground, and the nerve to hold your position when circumstances press in. In older lore it was a soldier's and an athlete's stone, kept close by people whose work asked their bodies to endure. It is traditionally linked with Aries and with anyone holding strong through a turning season.
Care notes. Bloodstone is one of the sturdy ones, at 6.5 to 7 on the hardness scale, and it asks very little: warm water and mild soap are fine, a soft brush takes care of carved or rough pieces, and ordinary handling does it no harm. Keep strong chemical cleaners off it, since they can dull the polish over time, and if it travels in a pouch with softer stones, give it a wrap of its own—it is hard enough to scratch them.
Stress-Buster Mantras—one line for your stone
The holidays ask a lot of a person, and the season is only getting louder from here. So here is a small tool, free to anyone who needs it: find your stone below—the one you reach for, or the one that has been reaching for you—and take its line with you. One line is enough. Say it when the list gets long and the shoulders creep up. These lines are encouragement, offered in the spirit of this page's traditions; they are not promises and not treatment for anything. The carrying is yours; the line is ours.
- Amethyst—"Quiet is not empty. Quiet is where I refill.”
- Rose quartz—"I am allowed to be gentle with myself first.”
- Black tourmaline—"What is not mine does not come home with me.”
- Citrine—"I can hold the list in one hand and the light in the other.”
- Clear quartz—"One thing at a time is still a whole prayer.”
- Lapis lazuli—"I say what I need, plainly and once.”
- Tiger's eye—"Slow feet still arrive.”
- Carnelian—"Warm hands, unhurried heart.”
- Labradorite—"Change is weather. I am the house.”
- Smoky quartz—"I breathe out the day before I carry it to bed.”
- Moonstone—"Rest is also a way of getting ready.”
- Bloodstone—"I have carried harder seasons than this one.”
- Selenite—"I clear the room, then I clear my mind.”
- Lepidolite—"Soft does not mean behind. Soft gets there too.”
And for any stone not named here—"Whatever you are carrying into this season, you do not have to carry it all today.”
If your stone is not in your hands yet, it may be in the library above or on the shelves below. And if you would like more lines like these as the season turns, the signup at the bottom of this page is where they will be coming from.
Browse the full collection in Crystals & Gemstones, and the Chakra Stones & Sets for stones gathered by purpose. Every Crystal Monday adds a new entry above, so check back each week to meet the next stone.
Stay with the Phoenix.
Join the list, and the good things come to you first: the new stone every Crystal Monday, the seasonal guides, and the word when something special reaches the shelf—before it reaches anyone else. No noise, and never more than the season asks for.