Sodalite Beaded Bracelet

Safe to handle. A brief rinse is fine, but avoid long soaks and salt, which can dull the polish. Not intended for internal use or drinkable elixirs.

Sodalite was first described in 1811 by chemist Thomas Thomson from specimens found in the Ilimaussaq complex of Greenland, and named for its sodium content. It remained a mineralogical curiosity until large ornamental deposits were found near Bancroft, Ontario in the early 1890s. After the Princess of Wales took a liking to the stone in 1901, Bancroft sodalite was shipped to London to decorate Marlborough House, and it has been carved, polished, and worn widely ever since.

Sodalite is a tectosilicate feldspathoid and the namesake of the sodalite mineral group, which also includes hauyne, nosean, and lazurite. It crystallizes in the cubic system and typically forms massive blue material veined with white calcite rather than distinct crystals. Unlike lapis lazuli it rarely contains pyrite. Most specimens fluoresce orange under ultraviolet light, and the hackmanite variety shows tenebrescence, temporarily changing color with light exposure.

• Because it so closely resembles lapis lazuli, sodalite was long mistaken for and sold as its costlier cousin, and some older lapis lore is now retold about it.
• When the Princess of Wales admired Bancroft sodalite at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, she ordered a shipment to decorate Marlborough House in London; the Ontario quarry became the Princess Sodalite Mine and its stone was sold as Princess Blue.
• Modern crystal tradition calls sodalite the Poet's Stone and a Stone of Truth, carried to encourage honesty and clear self-expression.