The Imperial Garnet is known for its soft pink to peach color and popularized for its color-shift appearance. This particular Garnet is a salmon color under natural lighting, shifting to a peach-orange under incandescent. A color-shift should not be confused with a color-change in which the change is more pronounced.
 
I cut this Garnet in a modified version of the design “Olive Bar”, written by Marco Voltolini.
 
As it is a natural stone, this does have some small horsehair rutile inclusions which are not visible in the hand.
 
Garnet is the name given to a group of mineral that can come in a wide variety of colors including yellow, green, white and shades of orange to red. Popular varieties are Rhodolite, Grossular, Imperial, and Spessartine The Garnet has a high refractive index, the same, or higher, than Sapphire. They are quite durable stones ranging on the Mohs Hardness Scale from 6.5 to 7.5, depending on the type of Garnet. They have also been given the privilege of being January's birthstone, though, these are more often portrayed as the blood red Pyrope.