Organic jewelry is fast becoming more and more popular all of the time. Organic jewelry is defined as “Jewelry that is made from items that were once living organisms or were produced by living organisms” These include such items as amber, pearls coral, botanicals, ivory, wood, bamboo, bone, jet, stone, and a variety of other substances. Whether you are looking for organic jewelry for body piercings or for earrings more and more jewelry stores are specializing in selling organic and natural forms of jewelry.

Amber in particular is a very beautiful gem that is a “fossilized tree resin” (or pine tree sap) that comes from extinct trees (similar to the conifer trees of modern times) that were believed to have grown in forests over 20 million years ago. Insects and air bubbles became trapped inside of the amber and this allowed for the creation of beautiful and very intricate designs. As the years went by the amber transformed in the forest into a golden and very warm and inviting color and in some cases it was a green colored kind of gemstone. 

Amber is mainly to be found in the Baltic regions of the world but it has also been found in other places around the globe such as Alaska, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Burma, Mexico, Italy, Borneo, the Middle East, New Zealand, the United States, Nigeria and Romania. The two main sources of amber that are sold on the market come from the Baltic region and the Dominican Republic. It is the amber that comes from the Baltic region that is the oldest and is therefore the most sought after to make organic jewelry into but the amber that comes from the Dominican Republic tends to be the most elaborate because it is more likely to have inclusions of insects in them.

The most desired amber is indeed the kind that has insects encapsulated in it. Amber is a beautiful material that can very easily be made into eye-catching pieces of jewelry such as earrings, amulets, pendants and body jewelry for piercings in various areas of the body. Amber has also a mystical way of capturing sunlight that shines in its direction and then making it possible for it to go through the body. The ancient Aztec tribe of people made use of amber for both body jewelry (labrets and earplugs) as well as incense. The Burmese hill tribe females such as the Kachin tribe have abundance amounts of dark orangish-red amber and they take it and design it into long, crayon shaped pieces of jewelry to wear around their necks.

The most common hue for amber is yellow and the second most common is a green hue but it can also be found in orange, brown, red, blue and black. The opacity of the amber can be translucent or completely clear but it can also be spotted, milky, or in some instances, dark with inclusions.

There are a number of younger semi-fossil resins (known as copals) that can easily resemble amber but if you yearn for the real thing, don’t be fooled! Other materials that are sometimes used for imitation amber include plastic, glass, as well as reconstituted amber.

 There are a number of tests that can be done to distinguish real amber from one of the imitations. Amber is a very basic conductor of static electricity and for that reason, a friction test is one that can be done to determine the authenticity of the gem. Another test involves observing the amber under a special black light. Placed under UV light, real amber turns into a beautiful hue of greenish blue while artificial or plastic resins do not.

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