What Is Lemon Quartz? Why Its Color Isn't Natural

Lemon quartz is a bright, slightly greenish-yellow variety of quartz — and unlike citrine, that vivid a color essentially doesn't occur in nature. Almost all lemon quartz on the market is produced by irradiating clear quartz in a lab, sometimes combined with heat treatment, to achieve its saturated tone.

It's worth distinguishing from citrine, which gets its warmer, more golden-orange color naturally (or through heat treatment of amethyst) from iron. Lemon quartz's cooler, more acidic yellow-green comes from a different, lab-induced color mechanism — useful to know since the two are sometimes marketed interchangeably despite being genuinely different in origin.