March's Birthstone: The Complete Aquamarine and Bloodstone Guide to Colour, Meaning and Buying

If you were born in March, you do not get one birthstone. You get two: aquamarine and bloodstone. That sounds generous, and it is, but it also hands March babies a real choice, because these two stones sit at opposite ends of the gem world. One is a clear, pale-blue beauty that looks like a piece of frozen seawater. The other is a dark green stone freckled with red, with a name that means exactly what you think it means.

We will give our opinion up front, because it shapes the whole article. Aquamarine is the modern March birthstone almost everyone reaches for, and for good reason: it is hard, affordable, endlessly wearable, and one of the easiest beautiful gems to own. Bloodstone is the older, stranger, more masculine choice that has quietly fallen out of fashion, and we think that is a shame, because it carries some of the best history on the entire calendar. Here is everything you need to choose well.

So What Is March's Birthstone, Exactly?

March has two official birthstones: aquamarine and bloodstone.

Aquamarine is the modern one. It appears on the original 1912 list set by the American jewellery trade and has been the popular face of March ever since. Bloodstone is the traditional stone, the one March carried for centuries before the modern list tidied everything up. So when you read that March has "two birthstones", that is the simple story behind it. One is the crowd-pleaser, one is the old guard, and both are completely legitimate.

Our take: do not feel you have to default to aquamarine just because it is the one in every advert. Aquamarine and bloodstone speak to different people. If you want a soft, elegant, everyday gem with a calm blue glow, aquamarine is hard to beat. If you want a stone with grit, ancient symbolism, and a look nobody else in the room will be wearing, bloodstone is waiting and almost forgotten. Neither is the "wrong" March birthstone.

Aquamarine: A Piece of the Sea You Can Wear

Aquamarine is a variety of beryl, which makes it a first cousin of the emerald. Same mineral family, wildly different personality. Where emerald is deep, included and dramatic, aquamarine is clear, cool and serene. The blue comes from traces of iron inside the crystal, and the range runs from the palest whisper of sky to a rich, saturated sea blue.

The name says it all. It comes from the Latin aqua marina, meaning "water of the sea", and the best stones really do look like a captured wave. That is also where its oldest legends come from. Sailors carried aquamarine to keep them safe on the water and to calm rough seas, and folklore made it the treasure of mermaids, spilled from the jewel boxes of sirens and washed up on the shore. For a stone that is genuinely common and genuinely affordable, aquamarine has an unusually romantic backstory.

Here is the field guide to what drives an aquamarine's value:

• Colour is everything. Aquamarine is one of the few gems where deeper colour almost always means higher value. A pale, watery stone is pretty and cheap. A vivid, deep sea blue is rare and commands a real premium.
• Santa Maria. The most prized aquamarines are an intense pure blue, and the benchmark name is "Santa Maria", after the Santa Maria de Itabira mine in Brazil. You will also hear "Santa Maria Africana" for similarly deep stones from Mozambique. These names get used loosely in the trade, so treat them as a description of colour, not a guarantee.
• Clarity. Unlike its cousin the emerald, fine aquamarine is usually very clean, often eye-clean or even loupe-clean. A good aquamarine should be bright and transparent, so visible cloudiness or inclusions pull the price down.
• Size. Aquamarine forms in large, clean crystals, which is wonderful news for buyers. Big, beautiful stones are far more attainable here than in almost any other coloured gem. The largest cut aquamarine in the world, the Dom Pedro, is a roughly 10,000 carat obelisk that now lives in the Smithsonian. You will not be wearing that, but it tells you something about how generous this mineral is.

Brazil has long been the heart of aquamarine mining, especially Minas Gerais, with important stones also coming from Nigeria, Madagascar, Pakistan, Mozambique and Zambia. If you want to go deeper on the romance and the ring styles, we wrote a whole piece on aquamarine engagement rings, which is where most people meet this stone for the first time.

The One Thing Nobody Tells You About Aquamarine

Here is the practical truth that saves you confusion at the counter: almost all aquamarine on the market has been heat-treated.

Most aquamarine comes out of the ground with a slightly green or yellowish tint. A gentle, permanent heat treatment removes that and shifts the stone to the pure blue that buyers want. This is a long-accepted, completely stable practice across the entire trade, and it is not a scam. A heat-treated aquamarine is still a natural aquamarine.

Our honest opinion: do not pay a wild premium chasing an "untreated" stone unless you specifically want one and have it certified. The colour is what you are buying, and a well-treated stone holds that colour forever. What you should care about far more is whether you are looking at natural aquamarine at all, because synthetic blue spinel and treated blue topaz are sometimes sold to look like it. When the money gets serious, that is when a report earns its keep.

Bloodstone: March's Forgotten Warrior Stone

Now for March's underrated half, and our personal favourite to write about. If aquamarine is the calm sea, bloodstone is the battlefield.

Bloodstone, also called heliotrope, is a variety of chalcedony, which is a compact, fine-grained form of quartz. The base is a deep, almost forest green, and scattered across it are flecks and spots of vivid red, which are tiny inclusions of iron oxide. The green field with its drops of red is exactly why it earned a name as blunt as "bloodstone". Look at a good one and the imagery is unmistakable.

The older name, heliotrope, comes from Greek words meaning "sun turning". Ancient writers claimed that if you dropped the stone into water and angled it just right, it turned the reflection of the sun blood red. It is a lovely piece of nonsense, and the kind of detail that makes bloodstone so much more interesting than its modern reputation suggests.

What makes bloodstone special is its history, and there is a lot of it:

• The crucifixion legend. The most famous bloodstone story is Christian. Medieval legend held that the stone was created at the Crucifixion, when drops of Christ's blood fell onto the green jasper at the foot of the cross and stained it forever. That is why it was sometimes called the "martyr's stone" and carved into religious scenes.
• The soldier's stone. Long before that, Roman and later medieval soldiers carried bloodstone for courage and, more practically, because they believed it could stop bleeding. The supposed power to staunch a wound followed the stone for centuries. We are firmly in folklore territory here, but you can see why a green-and-red stone got attached to blood and battle.
• Seals and signets. Because bloodstone is tough, opaque and takes a fine carving, it was a favourite material for engraved seals, signet rings and intaglios across the ancient and medieval world. This was a working stone, not just a decorative one.

So while aquamarine was calming sailors, bloodstone was riding into battle and sealing the letters of kings. The two halves of March could hardly tell more different stories.

Aquamarine vs Bloodstone: How to Actually Choose

This is the decision most March shoppers come here to make, so here is how we would think about it.

Choose aquamarine if you want a transparent, sparkling, classically beautiful gem for a ring, pendant or pair of earrings, and you want something light, feminine and easy to wear with anything. Aquamarine sits at 7.5 to 8 on the Mohs hardness scale, which is genuinely excellent for daily wear. It is harder than most coloured gems and shrugs off normal life better than emerald, opal or even tanzanite.

Choose bloodstone if you want an opaque, earthy, characterful stone with deep history, especially for a man's ring, a signet, cufflinks or a chunky cabochon piece. Bloodstone sits around 6.5 to 7 on Mohs, which is still tough enough for everyday wear with reasonable care, though it is softer than aquamarine and best kept away from hard knocks.

The format gap is the whole story. Aquamarine is faceted to sparkle, like a diamond or sapphire. Bloodstone is almost always cut as a smooth cabochon or a flat carving, because its beauty is in its colour and pattern, not in light return. You are essentially choosing between a bright transparent jewel and a solid, storied talisman. If you want the durability conversation across all twelve months, our birthstone wearability and engagement ring guide lays it out stone by stone.

Our flat recommendation: for most people buying a March birthday gift, aquamarine is the safer, more versatile, more universally loved choice, and it photographs beautifully. But if you are shopping for someone who likes the unusual, the antique or the meaningful over the merely pretty, bloodstone is one of the most overlooked gifts on the whole calendar, and you will be giving something almost nobody else thinks to give.

What March's Birthstones Mean

The two stones carry very different symbolism, which actually gives March gift-givers a lovely bit of range.

Aquamarine is the stone of calm, courage and clear communication. Because of its long link to the sea, it has always been associated with soothing emotions, cooling tempers and helping people speak honestly, which is why it is a popular choice for couples and for anyone facing a big life change. It is also a traditional 19th anniversary gem. If you are gifting aquamarine, you are gifting serenity and a steady head.

Bloodstone is the stone of strength, vitality and protection. Its whole history is bound up with courage, endurance and life force, the blood in the name made literal. Whether or not you put any stock in crystal lore, and we are gentle sceptics on the healing side, the symbolism makes bloodstone a genuinely thoughtful gift for someone who has shown resilience, or who simply values grit over glamour.

For the full historical picture of how each month got its stone in the first place, our birthstone origins and the 1912 list piece is the place to start, and the wider folklore lives in our summary of Kunz's Curious Lore.

The Buying Reality: Treatments, Price and What to Ask

Here is the part that saves you money and protects you from a bad purchase.

For aquamarine, the big things to check are colour, clarity and authenticity. Pay for depth of colour, because that is where almost all the value sits, and insist on a bright, clean stone, since aquamarine should not be cloudy. Assume the stone is heat-treated, because nearly all of it is, and do not pay extra for a stronger blue if the price suggests the colour was created by something other than honest heat. Above all, make sure you are buying natural aquamarine and not blue topaz, blue spinel or glass dressed up to look the part.

For bloodstone, the market is delightfully honest, mostly because it is inexpensive and there is little incentive to fake it. What you are looking for is good contrast: a deep, even green body with well-distributed, clearly red spots. The most prized pieces have bright red flecks rather than brownish ones, and a pleasing scatter rather than a single muddy patch. Because it is so affordable, you can simply hold out for a piece whose pattern you genuinely like.

The questions we would ask before paying real money:

1. For aquamarine: is it natural, and is the colour from heat alone? Heat is fine and expected. What you want to rule out is a different, cheaper stone being sold as aquamarine.
2. For aquamarine: how deep is the colour in normal daylight? Some stones look bluer under shop lighting than they will on your hand. Ask to see it by a window.
3. For bloodstone: is it natural chalcedony, and how good is the red? The contrast and distribution of the red spots is the entire game.
4. For any aquamarine over a carat or two, is there an independent report? For serious money, a GIA or comparable report is worth the cost. Bloodstone rarely needs one.

On rough numbers, this is a forgiving month for your wallet. Bloodstone is one of the most affordable birthstones there is, often costing very little even in a good-sized piece. Aquamarine is mid-range and superb value for its beauty, with prices climbing steeply only as you chase the deepest Santa Maria blues in larger sizes. March is, happily, a month with lovely options at every budget. If you are weighing a natural stone against a synthetic, our lab-grown versus natural birthstones guide covers the trade-offs.

When you are ready to shop actual pieces, our birthstone jewelry collection is the place to browse March settings for both stones.

Caring for Your March Birthstone

Good news: both March stones are relatively low-maintenance, which is part of why we like the month.

Aquamarine is genuinely easy to live with. Warm soapy water and a soft brush keep it sparkling, and at 7.5 to 8 on Mohs it resists scratches well. It is generally safe in an ultrasonic cleaner, though we would still avoid one if the stone has any visible inclusions or fractures, because no gem enjoys being shaken. Keep it out of prolonged harsh heat to protect the colour, store it so harder stones cannot scratch it, and it will serve you for a lifetime.

Bloodstone is hardy but a touch softer, so treat it with a little more respect. Warm soapy water and a soft cloth are all it needs. Skip the ultrasonic and steam cleaners, because chalcedony can have tiny fractures you cannot see, and avoid harsh chemicals and prolonged sunlight, which can dull the colour over time. Take a bloodstone ring off for heavy work and it will stay handsome for decades.

This difference is modest, but it is real. Aquamarine is the more forgiving of the two, which is one more reason it has become the everyday face of March.

March's Other Symbols

If you are building a March birthday gift, the birthstones pair beautifully with the month's birth flower, the daffodil, that first bright trumpet of spring, along with the jonquil. There is something fitting about a sea-blue stone and a sunshine-yellow flower marking the turn from winter into spring. We cover the full set in our birth flowers and birthstones by month guide, which is a lovely way to layer extra meaning into a present.

The Bottom Line for March Birthdays

A few closing opinions, the kind we would give a friend shopping for a March birthday:

• You have two real birthstones, so choose by personality, not default. Aquamarine for light, sparkling, everyday beauty. Bloodstone for character, history and a gift nobody else will think of.
• For most people, aquamarine is the easy win. It is hard, clean, affordable for its beauty, and it suits almost everyone.
• Bloodstone is the most underrated stone on the calendar. If the wearer likes the unusual or the antique, it is a quietly brilliant choice.
• With aquamarine, pay for colour and confirm it is the real stone. Assume heat treatment and do not lose sleep over it.
• With bloodstone, pay attention to the red. Good contrast and a pleasing scatter of bright red spots make all the difference, and it costs very little.

For the canonical month overview, see our March birthstone hub, and the whole Kunz lore series lives on the blog as we work through the old book one gem at a time.

Sources and Further Reading

• George Frederick Kunz, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones, 1913. The aquamarine sea-lore and the bloodstone crucifixion legend both appear in his chapters on the folklore of individual stones. We also wrote a plain-English summary of the whole book.
• For how the modern month-by-month list was assembled, see our birthstone origins history.
• For the aquamarine ring deep dive, see our aquamarine engagement rings guide.
• For the natural versus synthetic question, see lab-grown versus natural birthstones.
• For settings and styles, the birthstone engagement rings guide and the birthstone jewelry collection.

The simplest way to think about March's birthstones is this. You were handed the calm of the open sea and the courage of the battlefield, side by side. Aquamarine gives you serenity and effortless beauty. Bloodstone gives you history and grit. Pick the one that fits the person it will live on, and you cannot go wrong.