Real Unheated Citrine vs Heat-Treated Amethyst: How to Tell the Difference

Three Varieties of Citrine: Lemon Citrine, Naturally Heated Amethyst & Man-Heated Amethyst

Real Lemon Citrine Pendant from DoodlepunkArt

Updated & Clarified

This article was originally written at a time when the term “fake citrine” was commonly used in the metaphysical crystal community to describe heat-treated amethyst sold as citrine. Many people still search for phrases like “real citrine vs fake citrine,” reflecting widespread disagreement in the marketplace. In gemology, however, the distinction is not fake versus real, but rather between unheated natural citrine and heat-treated amethyst that appears yellow and is sold as citrine.

Gemologists consider heat-treated amethyst a legitimate form of citrine by color definition alone, even though its formation, crystal habit, and energetic qualities differ from those of unheated aluminum-lithium citrine, often called "lemon citrine." Both materials are yellow quartz, but they arrive at that color through very different geological and, in many cases, human processes.

This article has been updated to reflect that nuance while still teaching readers how to visually and structurally distinguish between the different types of “citrine” commonly sold on the market, including what collectors and metaphysical practitioners often mean when they refer to real citrine.

Unheated Smoky Lemon Citrine

What Citrine Is (And Why the Term Is Confusing)

Citrine is a yellow variety of quartz crystal and has a Mohs hardness of 7. Also called lemon citrine and (sometimes lemon quartz), it is known in the metaphysical realm for its ability to promote prosperity and abundance. Energetically, it helps dissipate negativity and promotes optimism. Citrine aids in manifestation by inspiring confidence and motivation, and by aligning the user with his/her true will. Citrine is linked with the sun and acts on the solar plexus chakra.

Unheated Lemon Citrine Sphere Ring

There are other yellow quartz varieties, including golden healer/ferruginous quartz, tangerine/iron-stained quartz and some amphibole quartz, all colored by inclusions, but these are not considered citrine.  For a gemologist, it does not matter what elements are causing the yellow color inside of citrine, as long as it is transparent color zones, not inclusions or coatings. However, for someone who is using citrine for metaphysical purposes, the color is not the only thing that matters.  We care about what elements cause that color, as they each have different healing properties. 

Unheated Citrine Pendant from DoodlepunkArt

How Citrine Forms: Three Common Pathways

Many websites and books claim that iron is what colors both natural citrine and amethyst, while at the same time listing the healing properties for lemon citrine.  There are actually three different types of citrine:

• Heat-treated Amethyst - Most citrine on the market is amethyst crystals that are heat-treated to product a yellow crystal.  They are colored predominantly by iron and have healing properties similar to amethyst.
• Naturally Heated-Citrine - These are amethyst that have been exposed to natural heat.  This is a very rare occurrence.  Healing properties are similar to amethyst or heat-treated amethyst, but can have their own unique nuance.
• Aluminum Citrine, or Lemon Citrine.  Color is not caused by iron and doesn't require heating for its yellow color.  Healing properties are very different from those of amethyst. This is the most highly sought after variety for those who use crystals for healing.  This is considered the true manifestation stone, activating the solar plexus chakra.  This is a rare stone. 

In quartz, trace elements such as aluminum or iron substitute for silicon within the crystal lattice. These substitutions create charge imbalances that are compensated by ions like lithium or hydrogen. When exposed to natural radiation, these impurity complexes form transparent color centers that produce amethyst, smoky quartz, or citrine coloration. Heating can alter or destroy some of these color centers, changing the crystal’s color without changing its chemical composition. In amethyst, this results in a yellow crystal.  In citrine or smoky quartz, the color simply fades.  I discovered that the hard way when soldering citrine crystals and the stones got too hot. The smoky color disappeared, and only a light yellow remained.    

Smoky Citrine Specimen from DoodlepunkArt

Note that the elements that color smoky quartz and citrine are the same, it is just the ratio of these elements that determines whether the color zone is yellow, green, brown or black or a combination of these.  This is why both of citrine and smoky quartz can come out of the same mine.

One More Variety: Ametrine

Ametrine is a variety of amethyst where it is either partially heated, or part of it was re-irradiated.  I have seen contradicting opinions as to whether it ever occurs naturally, but I have read that it can be created by heating amethyst, then protecting part of the crystal with lead and re-irradiating it. I imagine the conditions for this to happen naturally would be quite rare.   

Champagne Colored Unheated Citrine Sphere Pendant

So How Can You Tell Which Type of Citrine You Have?

Since amethyst is found in abundance, 99% of citrine sold on the market is heat-treated amethyst.  Unfortunately, with all the heat-treated amethyst flooding the market, it can be challenging to find real unheated lemon citrine.  And there is a lot of misinformation out there making it even more difficult to know what to look for.  What makes it even worse is that most heating happens at the mine, therefor many sellers do not even realize it is heated.  Brazilian mining and export law does not require disclosure of treatments at the mine level, leading the seller to unknowingly pass along bad information.

And to add to the confusion, some books and resources will also list the healing properties of lemon citrine, and show the photos of heated citrine.  Others will accurately show each as having their own unique properties, but not really explain how to tell them apart.  If you are looking at citrine for its metaphysical properties, you will need to be able to identify whether it is lemon citrine, or heated-amethyst citrine, because they do not have the same healing properties.  Heated-amethyst "citrine" properties are actually more similar to amethyst.  

Unheated Smoky Lemon Citrine from Sichuan, China

Color Ranges and What They Can (and Can’t) Tell You

The most common property that people look at when trying to identify minerals is color, and while this is usually inadequate on it's own, there are some distinct differences in color between most lemon citrines and heated amethyst citrines. Now, there are always exceptions to these rules, but most crystals on the market will fit into these color zones.  

Cool Colors On the Left - Warm Colors On the Right

Imagine a rainbow/spectrum with a line going right down the center of the color yellow.  From this line, the colors on the right gradually get warmer, and to the left the colors gradually get cooler.  This illustrates the color ranges of most heated-amethyst and lemon citrine.  To the right of the line is heated-amethyst and to the left is lemon citrine.

Classic Warm Hue of Heated Amethyst Citrine

Now I realize that this doesn't realistically represent the exact colors of the crystals, but I hope it illustrates my point.  Most heated amethyst citrine is warmer in color than lemon citrine.  Even if the color is yellow, most lemon citrine ranges cooler in color than heated amethyst, and although heated-amethyst can also be yellow, most is orange, red, champagne, amber or brown.  This alone will help you differentiate a good percentage of specimens on the market.

Unheated Smoky Citrine Crystal Pendant

Notice how all of the lemon citrine specimens I have posted range a bit cooler on the spectrum, even the ones that aren't smoky at the top of this article?  Also, if it is a smoky olive-yellow, I am quite sure it is not possible to be heated-amethyst, as heating destroys smoky color.

Now there are exceptions to this.  There are many crystals that are champagne colored, or sit right in the middle of yellow, and it can be quite hard to distinguish whether they are heated-amethyst or lemon citrine.  There are also some very rare unheated citrines with an intense warm yellow hue.  It can be very tricky to know if these are the very rare naturally heated variety or lemon citrine.  These situations require you to utilize other characteristics, such as crystal habit and dichroism (introduced at the end of the article.)     

Untreated Amethyst Cluster From Brazil

Crystal Shape and Growth Habit (One of the Most Reliable Clues)

Very simply put, crystal habit is the shape the crystal grows in.  Most amethyst on the market have a very distinct shape.  Now, this shape won't be present in 100% of heated-citrine crystals, but it has a high probability of helping you differentiate most heated-amethyst from lemon citrine.  

Heat-Treated Amethyst Cluster From Brazil

Dog-Toothed Crystals

Brazil is by far the largest supplier in the world of both amethyst, and heated-amethyst citrine.  Fortunately, this citrine is very easy to identify by shape. The majority of the amethyst produced grows in geodes or clusters.  Those are then broken up and sold as either small clusters or single crystals.  

Heated Amethyst from http://www.the-vug.com/vug/vugfakes.html
Notice the orange color and Dog-Tooth shape? 

Because the crystals grow so tightly packed together, the hexagonal sides (called m-faces) that would normally run roughly parallel along the crystal toward the termination (point) are often distorted beyond recognition.  The neighboring crystals cause severe growth interference of the crystal habit, resulting in a jagged diamond shaped crystal, called a "dog-toothed" crystal. If a raw crystal has this shape, it is safe to conclude that it is heated amethyst citrine.  

Dog-Tooth Shaped Amethyst Crystals

Lemon citrine can grow in clusters, but typically they still have m-faces, similar to smoky quartz.  If it has hexagonal sides, that either run parallel or taper toward the termination, you can rule out most Brazilian heated-amethyst citrine.

Lemon Citrine With Smoky Phantom - Long Parallel M-Faces

If the citrine crystal gets fatter as it get's closer to the termination, most likely it is heated-amethyst citrine from a geode.

Brazilian Heated Citrine - No M-Faces, Widest At Termination

Distribution of Color Within the Crystal

Another characteristic common in amethyst and heated-citrines from clusters is the tendency to be white at the base and dark at the termination.  Periodically natural lemon citrines do have this color zoning, but nearly all heated-citrine from geode have this trait.

Dog-Toothed Heated Citrine with White Base & Orange Termination

Unheated citrine is commonly more even colored throughout the crystal, or it could be darker at either the termination or the base, or it can have phantoms. But the majority of amethyst from geodes are dark at the termination and light at the base.  This trait alone can't identify which crystal you have, but used in combination with the other characteristics you can identify most heated-amethyst citrine.  

Smoky Lemon Citrine With Straight M-faces - Sichuan, China

Dichroism: The Coolest Citrine Crystal Test

If you’ve gotten to this point and still can’t tell whether your specimen is lemon citrine or heat-treated amethyst, don’t worry. Some stones fall right on the middle of the yellow spectrum, are champagne-colored, or are cut so you cannot see the crystal habit and color zoning.

One additional trait that can help is dichroism, a subtle color shift visible when a crystal is viewed from different directions. While quartz is not strongly dichroic overall, some natural lemon and smoky citrines can show a weak directional color change, often shifting between yellow and greenish-yellow or smoky tones as the crystal is rotated in the light.

Various Lemon Citrines, Some Smoky, Some Pale

Amethyst, including heat-treated amethyst sold as citrine, does not display true dichroism. Its color appears uniform regardless of viewing direction. For this reason, a noticeable directional color shift can be a useful supporting clue for identifying unheated citrine, especially when combined with crystal habit and color distribution.

My First Ever Citrine (Heat-Treated Amethyst)

A simple way to check for dichroism is to view the crystal against a white LCD screen and slowly rotate it. Often natural lemon and smoky citrines will show a subtle directional color shift, while amethyst and heat-treated amethyst remain uniform from all angles.

I will be filming a video on how to do a dichroism test soon, so check back for that, plus for a few more tidbits I ran out of time to complete.  I removed all of my links to lemon citrines for sale by various vendors because they were from 14 years ago - this rewrite was long overdue.  Hopefully it is a lot easier to get through and the new knowledge I have gained will help you find your perfect lemon citrine crystal.  If you are still having issues, you can contact me on Etsy, and I would be happy to help you find one.  Also, please visit me on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@doodlepunkart where I am teaching rockhounding, geology, crystallography, lapidary and wire-wrapping.

Amethyst Cluster

Thanks so much for reading.

If you liked this, you might also enjoy:

Red Phantom Quartz and the Important Work of Grounding

Carnelian Metaphysical Properties and Gemstone Information

Black Tourmaline (Schorl) Metaphysical Properties and Gemstone Information

---

Want new posts by email?

Subscribe

Dog Toothed Amethysts

One of my favorite quartz websites has a page on citrine that explains the science behind its formation in greater detail:   http://www.quartzpage.de/citrine.html

Dog Toothed Brazilian Amethyst

Dog Toothed Heated Citrine - White Base

The First Lemon Citrine Pendant I Ever Made