Hollywood stars believe crystals to heal stress, energize moisturizers and heighten orgasms. They are mined by children in mines, and the proceeds from the sale go to finance terrorism and civil wars. Why is the world obsessed with semiprecious stones and who benefits from it?
Wonderful miracle
Hollywood stars believe crystals to heal stress, energize moisturizers and heighten orgasms. They are mined by children in mines, and the proceeds from the sale go to finance terrorism and civil wars. "Lenta.ru" figured out why the world is obsessed with semi-precious stones and who benefits from it.
Gone are the days when miraculous crystals were the lot of shamans, astrologers and other witches who made money on the belief in miracles of not too educated people. Now it is difficult to imagine the life of many world stars without semi-precious stones and their supernatural powers. Kim Kardashian used gems to combat robbery stress; singer Adele, after losing her crystals, failed her performance at the Grammy Awards; actress Kate Hudson, like Alan Chumak, “charged” her moisturizer by keeping it next to the crystals.
But Gwyneth Paltrow went farthest, recommending the use of eggs made of quartz as a vaginal trainer. The actress claims that these "exercise machines for the intimate area of the body restore hormonal balance and fill women with feminine energy." At the same time, the cost of quartz eggs is only $ 66, and the increase in orgasm, according to Paltrow, is very radical. And if the behavior of the Kardashians, Adele and Hudson raises only a smile, then Paltrow's advice is the real anger of the professional community.
Thus, the authoritative specialist in the field of gynecology, Dr. Jen Gunter from the United States, said that the very idea of a "vaginal trainer" is delusional, and the use of quartz eggs can lead to bacterial vaginosis or toxic shock syndrome. Nevertheless, this did not stop Paltrow from starting a very successful trade in "vaginal eggs".
Gwyneth Paltrow offers two types of vaginal eggs: rose quartz - cheaper and made of jade - more expensive. How much stronger the orgasm from the latter is not reported. Image: Goop Inc.
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The growing belief in the miraculousness of semi-precious stones, and at the same time the rise in prices for them, is the trend of the last decade. Semi-precious stones have been valued before, but their pricing was largely determined by the same factors as those of precious stones: rarity, clarity, transparency, light scattering and hardness. As a result, some rare semi-precious stones cost no less than precious ones, and jewelry with them became works of art. For example, tanzanite in the 1960s became one of the stars of Tiffany's jewelry, and the black opal “Fire of Troy” was one of the most luxurious gifts that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to Josephine Beauharnais.
However, it is impossible to enhance the above characteristics, which means that the price of the already mined stone is impossible. But to convince buyers that the gem has miraculous power and should cost more is quite. Actually, it is for this reason that sellers of semi-precious stones in recent years have been pedaling precisely the theme of their otherworldly power.
One big problem
Nowadays, a noticeable part of the added value of semi-precious stones is due to their supposedly miraculous effect, positive impact on humans and a special connection with nature. In reality, the crystal market is currently much less regulated than the gem market, which creates a number of problems.
Firstly, in almost all countries of the world, legislation does not require specifying the country of origin of stones and the company that mined them. Considering that there are deposits of semi-precious stones on almost every continent, this makes it impossible to track the ultimate beneficiary of the gem trade.
The market for so-called "blood diamonds" (illegally mined stones, the proceeds of which were used to finance the purchase of weapons for rebel groups in West Africa) dwindled after the UN established the rules for diamond certification in the Kimberley Process in 2003. Gems have become a new source of funding for terrorist organizations, the armed underground and participants in civil wars. Thus, according to the non-profit organization Global Witness, the Taliban make up to 20 million from the sale of Afghan lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli, by the way, is positioned as a stone that improves psychic abilities.
The problem of uncontrolled and not always legal diamond mining and sale has attracted filmmakers more than once. The most famous was the film "Blood Diamond" with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. He came out after the completion of the "Kimberley process", which put an end to this business. Frame: the film "Blood Diamond".
The second problem, following from the first, is the complete lack of control over who, how and in what conditions extracts gems. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the nonprofit organization Earthworks points out that children from seven to ten years old work in mines where citrines (a type of yellow quartz) and smoky quartz (often passed off as citrine) are mined. Child labor is also used in the extraction of these stones in Myanmar.
Thirdly, for many large companies, trading in gems is a side business that should not even be reflected in the reporting. This applies to those companies that sell crystals from the same mines as the main trade item. For example, tourmaline, amethyst, quartz and citrine are often mined in the same mines as gold, copper and cobalt. The legislation of many countries of the first world does not require industrial mines to disclose profits from side activities, which is considered the extraction and trading of semi-precious stones. All this creates a fertile ground for corruption, money laundering and financing of terrorist organizations.
Finally, trading in semi-precious stones is to one degree or another cheating the client. Not all buyers realize that they are acquiring an exhaustible resource, the extraction of which damages the environment. Not to mention that the healing effect of crystals and their beneficial effect on the owner, to put it mildly, have not been scientifically proven.
Back in 2001, a psychologist from Goldsmiths University, Dr. Christopher French, conducted an experiment on 80 volunteers. Half of them were given pieces of quartz for meditation, and the rest were given similar-looking plastic. At the same time, all 80 people were sure that their crystals were real. Along with the gems, the participants were given a brochure describing ten sensations that volunteers can experience. At least one of ten sensations was experienced by 74 participants in the experiment.
One of the main sources of money to finance military action during the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone war was the sale of child-mined diamonds. One of the reasons for the end of the war was precisely the "Kimberley process", which cut off this funding channel. Diamond mining in Sierra Leone. Photo: dw.com
Belated responsibility
Fortunately, the trend towards responsible consumption is slowly but sinking into the semi-precious stones market. Thus, a petition to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop company demanding the use of only stones that were not mined in violation of human rights and did not damage the environment, has collected 17 thousand signatures. Simone Van Vliet, owner of JewelersParadise, California's largest semi-precious gem store, notes the importance of information on the origin of the stones.
“I know where every stone in my warehouse comes from. Many factories we work with are environmentally friendly. They recycle the water used to cut the rock and provide a proper working environment for their employees,”she says. There is a section on the origin of the stones on the website of a major American seller Energy Muse.
However, most traders do not reveal the history of the stones. Sellers in the United States either refused to name the sources of their goods, or did not respond at all to a request from the journalists of The New Republic, which raised the problem of unethicality in the market for semi-precious crystals.
According to Julie Abuzelhov, the owner of a company that sells semi-precious stones in Hawaii, disclosing the source of the stones, not to mention the mandatory certification of their origin, will lead to a significant increase in their prices. The fact is that some stones are found only in one country. Most of the world's amber reserves are located in Russia, tanzanite is found only in Tanzania, Afghan lapis lazuli - only in Afghanistan, and a significant part of tourmaline deposits - in Brazil …
Diamond mining in Congo. Photo: rgnn.org
Some gem sellers simply cannot help but work with dubious crystal miners. Of course, before getting to the USA or Europe, such “blood crystals” pass through the hands of several intermediaries, but this does not make them “cleaner”, rather it allows the end seller to protect their reputation.
Another problem of the semi-precious stones market is its fragmentation. The mining of natural gemstones and the cultivation of artificial ones are controlled by industrial giants, but most of the industrial enterprises in the semi-precious stone market are quite small. Moreover, American legislation allows even private individuals to mine semi-precious stones: there is at least one private mine in every state.
A rare exception in the industry is Russia, where the extraction of minerals, precious and semi-precious stones is prohibited, since the subsoil belongs to the state. This leads to the fact that, for example, 90 percent of the world amber production is carried out by JSC Kaliningrad Amber Plant.
Working with large manufacturers is a definite insurance for those semi-precious stones traders who only want to deal with “ethical” raw materials. According to Stephen Wells of the Indian company Kacha Stones, the signs of a large producer are low price and high volume, which indirectly suggests that the stones are mined in large industrial plants as by-products.
Despite the ugliness of the semi-precious stones business, it has a significant difference from the blood diamond business in the 1990s: its size. The market for gemstones in 2018 was $ 4.5 billion. Moreover, 80 percent of it is diamonds, of which 85 percent are artificial.
Anton Shiryaev