September's Birthstones- Lapis & Sapphire

If you were born in September, you have two birthstones, and both of them are a gorgeous blue. That's about where the similarity ends. One is the blue that kings and clergy wore for a thousand years, the stone that ended up on the most famous engagement ring in the world. The other is older than either of them, an ancient blue flecked with gold that people have treasured for eons.

Taken together, they make perfect sense for a September baby. You're compassionate and confident, organized and discerning, the friend everyone calls when they need a clear head and an honest answer. An old soul, in the best way.

Sapphire for Mental Clarity. Lapis for Intuition and Wisdom. Here's how to choose.

Sapphire

Start with the one you know. Sapphire is the blue most of us picture when we hear the word gemstone: deep and saturated. Its name comes from the Greek sappheiros, which simply meant blue stone, and for most of recorded history that's exactly what it was: the blue stone, the one against which every other blue was measured.

Here is the fun part most people don't know. Sapphire is corundum, the same mineral as ruby. A ruby is just a corundum that happens to be red. Every other color of corundum, and there are many, is a sapphire. Pink sapphire, yellow sapphire, green sapphire, the peachy-pink padparadscha. Blue is simply the one that made the stone famous. You are starting to see the others out there in contemporary jewelry. The pink sapphires are gorgeous, check them out!

Sapphire is also one of the hardest things on earth. On the Mohs scale it sits at a 9. Only diamond is harder. That means it won't scratch, and it won't cloud or dull with wear. Like every gemstone, including diamond, it can still chip if you catch it hard against a countertop or a door frame, so treat it with a little care and it will look the same in thirty years as it does today.

At Judith Bright, sapphire is the stone of Mental Clarity. Not luck, not love, not protection, though sapphire has been credited with all three across the centuries. Clarity. The ability to see a situation as it is, cut through the noise, and know what matters. It's a stone for deciding.

The history

The finest sapphires have historically come from Kashmir, where a landslide in the 1880s exposed a deposit that produced cornflower-blue stones so extraordinary they set the standard for every sapphire since. That mine was exhausted within a few decades. Today sapphire comes from Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Myanmar, Thailand, Australia, and, closer to home, Montana, where the stones run a slightly cooler, steel-tinged blue.

And then there's the ring. In 1981, a 12-carat oval blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds became the most photographed piece of jewelry on the planet, and in 2010 it did it again on a new hand. Sapphire had been a royal stone for centuries. That ring made it a stone everyone wanted. (Princess Diana's ring, now Kate Middleton wears it, which is really sweet to me.)

Who it's for

Sapphire is for the person who values a clear mind above almost anything. The one who thinks before she speaks, who makes a list, who can sit with a hard decision and come out the other side knowing exactly what to do. It's for the friend starting a new chapter and wanting to see it clearly. The graduate. The new mother who hasn't had a clear thought in four months and would like one back. Anyone who has ever said "I just need to think."

It's also, frankly, for the September birthday who wants the classic. The blue everyone recognizes. There is nothing wrong with wanting the one that's famous.

Lapis

Now meet the one that's older and slightly less famous.

Lapis lazuli is not a single mineral. It's a rock, a natural blend of deep blue lazurite, white calcite, and flecks of golden pyrite. No two pieces are alike. Some are nearly solid ultramarine. Some are shot through with gold. Some carry soft veins of white like clouds moving across the blue. When you buy a lapis piece from us, you are getting a stone with a pattern that exists nowhere else on earth.

The color is the thing. Lapis is not the sky at dusk like sapphire. Lapis is a blue so deep and opaque it almost has weight to it. Set against 14K gold, the pyrite flecks pick up the metal and the whole piece starts to glow.

At Judith Bright, lapis is the stone of Intuition and Wisdom. Where sapphire is about thinking clearly, lapis is about knowing. The gut feeling that turns out to be right. The wisdom you can't quite explain how you have. Lapis has been called the stone of truth for thousands of years, and the meaning has held because it fits: this is a stone for trusting yourself.

The history

Lapis has been mined from the same valley in northeastern Afghanistan for more than six thousand years. The Sar-i Sang mines were producing lapis before the pyramids, before writing, before wheels. Traders carried it thousands of miles by foot and by camel to Mesopotamia, to the Indus Valley, to Egypt. It was among the first gemstones humans ever traded over long distances, which tells you how badly people wanted that blue.

The Egyptians were obsessed. Lapis was ground into eyeshadow, carved into scarabs, and set into the eyebrows of Tutankhamun's funerary mask. Cleopatra is said to have worn powdered lapis on her eyelids. The Sumerians buried their royalty with it. In the ancient world, lapis was worth more than gold.

Then, in the Renaissance, lapis got a second life as a color. Ground into powder and refined, it became ultramarine, the most expensive pigment in history, more costly than gold by weight. Painters saved it for the most important thing in the painting, which is why the Virgin Mary's robe is so often that particular deep blue. Vermeer used it so lavishly he left his family in debt. The blue in Girl with a Pearl Earring is lapis.

Who it's for

Lapis is for the person who already knows. The one who reads a room in ten seconds, who trusts her instincts and is almost always right, who gives advice that sounds simple and turns out to be exactly what you needed. It's for the September birthday who would rather have the stone with a story than the stone with a headline. It's for anyone standing at a crossroads who needs to stop asking everyone else and start listening to herself.

Lapis is also for the person who likes a little gold in her blue. The pyrite is not a flaw. It's the point. Our lapis has plenty of flecks and we have always loved pyrite at the studio.

The JB version

Every September birthstone piece at Judith Bright is handmade in our Nashville studio, one at a time, by hand, in 14K gold-filled or sterling silver. Gold-filled is not gold-plated and it is not vermeil. It carries a thick layer of solid 14K gold bonded to the core, which is why it doesn't tarnish, doesn't fade, and doesn't turn on your skin. Everything is nickel-free and made for every day.

The two stones show up a little differently in our collection, and that's worth knowing before you shop.

Sapphire lives in our rondelle pieces. These are small, faceted, disc-shaped stones strung and wrapped along fine chain and wire, and they are where sapphire's color does its best work: a line of deep blue catching light from every angle. Look for it in the Mila Necklace in 5-stone and 7-stone versions, the Madeleine Necklace, the Tres Necklace and Bracelet, the Mila Lariat, the Maggie and McClaine Earrings, the Uno Nest Posts, and the Rondelle Dominique Cuff. If you want sapphire on a wrist that's already stacked, the Evelyn Cuff and the Mini Hoops with Rondelle Charms both slip right in.

Lapis comes in every size we make. Because lapis is an opaque stone with so much character in every piece, we cut it in everything from the tiniest bead to the biggest nugget. That means you'll find it in the Mini Rock and Petite Rock families (necklaces, bracelets, rings, and threaders), in the Raj Rock Lasso and Raj Nest Ring and Cuff, in the Nugget Necklace and the Rockstar Nugget Pendant, in the Lots O' Rock Nest Rings, in the Sandalwood Bracelets, and in the same rondelle pieces as sapphire, the Mila, Madeleine, and Tres. If you want a single bold stone at your throat, lapis is the September birthstone that can do it.

You choose the stone, the piece, the metal, and the size. Our artisans make it for you. That's how it has worked since 2005, and it's why no two Judith Bright pieces are quite the same.

Shop Sapphire · Shop Lapis · Shop All September Birthstone Jewelry

Two stones, one month

September gives you a choice. Sapphire for Mental Clarity. Lapis for Intuition and Wisdom. Two blues, two meanings: one for the mind that thinks its way through, one for the heart that already knows. The truth is that most of us need both, and most September babies we know have a little of each.

Wear one or wear both. Then come see us in 12 South, and we'll make it right in front of you.