The 2 Colorful October Birthstones: Opal and Tourmaline

What Are the October Birthstones?

October has two birthstones: opal and tourmaline. Opal is known for its shifting flashes of color, while tourmaline comes in a wide range of shades, from soft pink to deep green. Both offer a beautiful way to celebrate an October birthday, whether you're choosing a gift or a piece of jewelry for yourself.

In this guide, we'll explore what makes each October birthstone unique, where these gems come from, what they symbolize, and how they're worn today.

Opal

Opal is best known for play-of-color, the flashes of different colors that appear as the stone moves in the light. These flashes may be subtle or vivid, and each opal has its own appearance. That individuality is a large part of the gemstone's appeal.

Opal's play-of-color comes from the way light interacts with tiny, closely arranged silica spheres inside the stone. Opals that display this effect are called precious opals. Other opals, known as common opals, may have attractive body colors without the shifting flashes.

Opals can have white, gray, black, or other body colors. A  darker background can make the play-of-color look especially striking, but beauty comes down to the individual stone and the colors you love most.

The October birthstone, opal, occurs in a wide range of varieties. The rare and valuable black opal is considered the most precious, while other types include gray, green, white, and even colorless stones. Each variation offers its own distinctive beauty, making opals one of the most diverse and mesmerizing birthstones.

The Geography of Opals

Australia is the best-known source of opal. Coober Pedy is famous for its opal mining history, while Lightning Ridge is particularly well known for black opal. Opal is also found in places such as Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States.

The conditions in which opal forms can give each stone a distinctive appearance. Opal has even been found replacing ancient fossils, preserving details of plants and animals in gemstone form.

Opal Varieties

Opals appears in several varieties, each with its own look:

• White opal has a light body color that can show soft or vivid flashes.
• Black Opal has a dark body color that can make its play-of-color stand out.
• Fire opal is known for its warm yellow, orange, or red body color. Some fire opals also display play-of-color.
• Crystal opal is transparent to translucent, allowing light to pass through the stone.

Terms such as pinfire describe patterns of play-of-color rather than a seperate type of opal. With so much variation, choosing an opal is often about finding the particular combination of background color and flashes that catches your eye.

Opals and Value

An opal's value depends on more than its variety. The brightness and pattern of its play-of-color, the colors it displays, its body color, size, and condition all matter.

Black opals can be especially valuable, but the best choice for a piece of jewelry is the opal you enjoy looking at. Two stones may be the same variety and still have entirely different personalities.

Opals and Symbolism

Opal has been associated with love and hope since ancient times. Its shifting colors have inspired stories and beliefs across cultures, making it a meaningful choice for someone drawn to jewelry with history as well as beauty.

Today, opal can also feel personal because no two stones look exactly alike. An opal gift celebrates both an October birthday and the individuality of the person wearing it.

Opals in Fashion

An 1829 novel by Sir Walter Scott called “Anne of Geierstein” popularized a superstition about wearing opals as a sign of bad luck. But this superstition, with its roots in actual fiction, has been forgotten. Nowadays opals are beloved by fashion designers for their versatility, their striking appearance, and the allure of their individuality, as no two opals are alike.

High-end designers have included opals in their recent collections. Victoire de Castellane, creative director of Dior Jouaillerie, describes the opal as a “very poetic stone”…

“it’s like an invitation to enter a fairy tale, to experience magic. When I look at an opal, I feel like I’m seeing the earth from afar, the ocean, the archipelagos, and the reflections of stars on ocean waves… I see it as nature’s gemstone par excellence, a stone that’s so intertwined with femininity, its connection becomes organic.”

Lucky news for those born in October, then, who get to have the opal as their birthstone. Opals can be seen these days in beautiful earrings, necklaces, and ring settings alike. Style icon Taylor Swift wore opal earrings to the 2020 Golden Globe awards, proving that opal jewelry is making a comeback.

As well as being October’s birthstone, they are an increasingly popular choice for engagement rings.

Tourmaline

Tourmaline colors & Crystal structure

The second October birthstone is tourmaline, often called the “rainbow gemstone” because it appears in nearly every color. Tourmaline is a complex group of boron silicate minerals, and its crystal structure gives it a fascinating quality known as pleochroism — meaning it displays different colors when viewed from different angles or lighting conditions.

Common varieties of tourmaline include green, blue, pink, and yellow stones. The gem’s diverse colors are caused by trace minerals: iron and titanium typically produce green and blue tones, while manganese creates shades of red, pink, and sometimes yellow.

What makes tourmaline especially distinctive is its triangular, prismatic crystal structure. This unique formation can create gems with multiple colors within a single stone. Some cut tourmalines resemble layers of Neapolitan ice cream, showcasing several hues in one dazzling piece. A well-known variety, watermelon tourmaline, features striking bands of pink and green that make it a favorite among collectors and jewelry lovers.

Where Tourmaline is Found

Tourmaline was first recorded in 1554 by Francisco Spinoza as “Brazilian emerald“. The tourmaline birthstone occurs in significant deposits across Brazil, the United States (notably California and Maine), Madagascar, and Ethiopia. Its name comes from a Singhalese word, touramalli, meaning “mixed colored stones,” a fitting description for such a vividly diverse gem.

Beyond its beauty, the October birthstone tourmaline also has fascinating physical properties. When heated, tourmaline crystals develop a positive charge at one end and a negative charge at the other, allowing them to attract lightweight substances. This phenomenon, known as plezoelectricity, has even been used in scientific instruments such as pressure gauges — proving that tourmaline is as functional as it is beautiful.

Mystical Associations of Tourmaline

In feng shui, tourmaline is believed to balance yin and yang energies, bringing masculine and feminine forces into harmony. It’s also thought to create a protective barrier against negative energy, helping the wearer feel grounded and secure.

Across spiritual traditions, tourmaline is closely linked to the chakras — the body’s energy centers described in Sanskrit teachings. Each color of tourmaline is associated with a different chakra:

• Pink tourmaline – encourages joy and love
• Green tourmaline – connected to the heart chakra
• Blue tourmaline – tied to the third eye and throat chakras, inspiring insight and self-expression
• Watermelon tourmaline – with layers of pink and green, associated with the heart chakra, passion and love.

Many believe wearing tourmaline can help restore balance and vitality by “recharging” these energy centers.

Tourmaline in Fashion and History

Tourmaline’s allure extends far beyond its mystical associations. The Chinese Dowager Empress Tz’u Hsi was famously devoted to pink and red tourmalines from San Diego County, California. Her passion for the stone fueled massive exports to China in the early 1900s, where artisans transformed the gems into jewelry, snuff boxes, and courtly treasures. Between 1902 and 1910, more than 120 tons of pink tourmaline were shipped from California to China. When the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1912, so too did the U.S. tourmaline trade , but the surviving artifacts remain striking examples of tourmaline’s beauty and versatility.

Native American cultures also revered tourmaline, particularly pink and green varieties, often using them as funeral gifts. to honor the deceased.

Today, tourmaline is admired worldwide for its vast color palette and unique optical effects. Jewelers favor it for pendants, rings, and necklaces, where it often shines alone or paired with diamonds for dramatic contrast. Tourmaline’s multicolored crystals also inspire creative cutting patterns such as concave faceting, which can produce dazzling, flower-like reflections.

Different regions are known for distinctive colors: Brazil produces vibrant blues, California yields pink and green bicolors, Maine is famous for pink tourmalines, and African deposits often contain copper-rich greens. Each origin brings its own character and charm to the gemstone.

Express Your Style with October’s Birthstones

Opal and tourmaline offer two different ways to wear color. Choose opal if you love flashes that change with the light, or tourmaline if you want to explore a favorite shade. Either can make a thoughtful October birthday gift and a lasting addition to a jewelry collection.

Explore Brinker's Jewelers October birthstone collection to find an opal or tourmaline piece that feels just right.

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