Onyx: Meaning, Colours, and the Black Stone That's Almost Always Dyed
Onyx is the deep, glassy black stone of protection, focus, and quiet strength, and it hides one of the biggest open secrets in the gem trade: almost all of the jet-black onyx you see has been dyed. It starts life as plain grey banded agate and is turned black with a sugar-and-acid recipe the Romans worked out two thousand years ago. That is not a scam, it is standard and stable, but almost nobody tells you. This is the honest guide to what onyx means, why black onyx is nearly always treated grey chalcedony, the completely different soft calcite 'onyx' that shares the name and scratches in a heartbeat, the real colours (black, sardonyx, white, green, banded), why sardonyx is August's traditional birthstone and the stone the Romans carved cameos from, and how to buy and care for a genuinely tough daily-wear gem.
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