Hematite is a mineral that has a very striking and unusual appearance when used to make jewelry. It is not one the most popular gems in use, nor is it anyone's birthstone. In fact, the people most familiar with hematite are probably going to be those interested in New Age spirituality or alternative medicine. To these people, hematite is an iron-rich stone that corresponds with earth energies. Those who want stability or to ground their energies during religious or healing rituals may choose to carry a piece of hematite in their pockets or wear hematite jewelry. (COPYRIGHT: I'm so sorry to have to put this here, but I've had trouble with online content theft. Readers are welcome to print my articles for their personal use, but I do not allow my text or photos to be copied to anyone's online site. No one may use my content without written permission from me.)
According to Wikipedia, hematite is mined as the main ore of iron, and its coloration varies from black to steel/silver gray to brown or reddish brown. In addition, hematite went through its most popular jewelry-making period in Victorian times, but is currently making comeback. [1]
Victorian-era jewelry runs to the splendidly somber due to Queen Victoria's influence upon fashion when she centered her wardrobe around mourning colors of gray and black after the death of her consort. Hematite with its heavy gray sheen would have fit the trend. (Another popular mineral for Victorian jewelry is jet, a type of fossilized coal that has a shiny black appearance like a beetle's wing.)
In the first photo, you can see a big chunk of hematite. This is the type of piece that a New Age practitioner might carry around in his or her pocket for its metaphysical grounding properties. It has an unusually heavy, pleasing feel when polished into round piece like this. As you can see, it's opaque. In fact, it almost seems to absorb light rather than reflecting it. It can be brittle so you have to take care when drilling it (or use adhesive to attach a bail to it for stringing purposes).The traditional thing to do in jewelry making is to pair hematite with a metal that compliments it like silver. However, you can see in the photo that gold forms a striking contrast with its dull steel-gray sheen. I think you could use either gold or silver (though brass or copper might not be as appealing a combination).
In the second photo, you can see the contrast between the inky black onyx beads on the left and the gunmetal gray of the hematite beads on the right. These two minerals worked together in a necklace probably would have pleased the Victorian very much. Today's young people in the Goth scene might like this sort of thing as well.
Other minerals that work well with hematite include pearl, moonstone, white onyx, and bloodstone with its deep green veined with red. Since hematite is the main ore of iron, it can have a rusty brownish streak. This type of hematite, or even the usual gunmetal gray type, can pair well with rugged, opaque, dull-reddish minerals like red jasper.
Hematite might strike the avant-garde type as too simplistic and rustic looking in its rounded, polished form. (Turquoise gets dismissed in a similar fashion as a gemstone for young, countrified types.) However, when hematite is cut and polished into square forms with edges, it can look very striking and futuristic!
References
1. Hematite, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematite, retrieved 1/27/10
