Determine if a crystal is soluble in water or not
Before spiritually cleaning a crystal when you bring it home from the store, it is recommended that you clean your crystal first. In order to use your crystal for healing, spiritual or metaphysical purposes, it should definitely be cleaned before being prepared. Since crystals absorb vibrations, light, and come from the ground, you must first clean any additional energy and dirt on them.
When you bring home a new glass, it may have mud, dirt, oil, or debris on it, so you must physically clean the glass first. Depending on the type of glass, determine how you would clean it. Not all crystals can be submerged in water. If you are not sure whether your new glass is water soluble or not, you can ask who you bought it from first. If they don’t know, you may want to look up the type of crystal online or in a book to be sure.
In terms of solubility in water and crystals, you should compare your crystal to what is called the “Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness”. The general rule of thumb is that any mineral that is rated 6 or higher can be safely cleaned with water. . Crystals that can be safely cleaned with water include the quartz family: clear or “rock”, smoky, rose, amethyst, chalcedony, aventurine, etc. and precious stones, such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc.
Crystals that score below 6 on the Mohs scale are water soluble and will dissolve, so they cannot be cleaned with water. If you are not sure where the crystal you have is on the “Mohs scale”, minerals that end in “ite” tend to be water soluble. These crystals include: Fluorite, Calcite, Malachite, Halite, Sodolite, and Rhodizite and should not be exposed to water. Although these do not end in “ite”, lapis lazuli, turquoise, ivory and gypsum are also soluble in water. There is also a little test you can run to determine the water solubility of a crystal. A small sample is taken with a steel knife. Try scratching the surface of the glass. If scratched, 10 times out of 10 it is soluble in water.
When you buy a crystal and bring it home, it may still have its growth matrix or mud. These two things are packed with nutrients from the earth. It is recommended that you first try to gently remove these things with a brush. The matrix can be a very hard yellow surface that surrounds the crystal and cannot be removed in this way.
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