Quick Specs
- Brand: Sonavi
- Series: Crystal Scents Ritual Kit
- Format: Incense sticks with a small bag of chips
- Pack: 8 incense sticks
- Stone: Tiger’s eye chips
- Sticks: Visible botanical grains
- Fragrance: Inspired by tiger’s eye
Gold-Brown Quartz With a Moving Band of Light
Tiger’s eye is a variety of quartz, in the same family as amethyst, and it took shape inside the fibrous structure of crocidolite, a blue asbestos mineral, so the stone keeps that fine grain. Iron stains the quartz gold, honey and brown, which gives tiger’s eye its familiar color. On a polished piece the grain shows as a silky band of light that slides across the surface when you change the angle, an effect called chatoyancy. The chips in this kit run from golden brown to deep brown, and some pieces show layers of gold beside darker tones, each one a little different in size and outline. The box is gold on black with a yellow glow, a star at the top, an eye drawn inside a circle in the middle, and a face crowned with a crescent moon near the base, which suits a stone named for an eye. The eight sticks are coated in dried plant material, gold flecks over black, with yellow bare ends. Tip the chips into a dish under a lamp, and the warm tones read as gold against the dark of the sticks.
In modern crystal practice, tiger’s eye is associated with the solar plexus chakra, with courage, confidence and willpower, and with protection. Those are lore associations, and they’ve made it a favorite for days that call for steadiness: a first day somewhere new, a presentation, a request you’ve been putting off, a reading for someone who asked a hard question. Gold-brown and warm, a chip looks like late afternoon light caught in rock, and one on the desk gives your eye somewhere pleasant to land. A bag of chips also divides easily among places: a few on the altar, a few by the keyboard, and one in a pocket for the day. Turn a chip under a lamp and watch the band of light move across it. A few seconds of that kind of attention make a good pause before a difficult task, and the stick burning beside you marks the moment you chose to begin. The Gem Society rates tiger’s eye very good for wearability, and a chip carried in a pocket takes ordinary handling well.
Practical Ritual Applications
Light a stick on the morning of something that asks for nerve: an interview, a hard conversation, a launch day, the first page of a project you keep circling. Set the chips on your desk where you’ll see them, and pick one up when you feel your attention drifting. A short altar ritual works too. Burn a stick while you write down the one thing you’ll do today, then tuck a chip in your pocket as a reminder to do it. For more stones in the same spirit, my courage, strength and support stones collection has tumbled and raw pieces to keep beside the chips. After a hard day, a stick and a chip on the table also give you a small, quiet way to mark that the task is done.
How to Burn Tiger’s Eye Incense Sticks and Turn the Chips
Three steps take you from setup to a cool holder, with the chips kept clear of heat.
- Set the holder on a steady surface
Stand a sturdy, heat-resistant holder made for incense on a flat, heat-resistant surface, with room around it and no curtains, paper or fabric nearby. Make sure the holder grips a coated stick firmly. Open a window or door so the smoke has somewhere to go. Place a small dish of chips a hand's width away and out of the path of falling ash.
- Light the stick and turn a chip under the lamp
Hold the tip to a flame until it catches, let the flame settle so the end glows, and stand the stick in its holder. Take one chip, tilt it under your lamp, and watch the band of light move as the angle changes. Tiger's eye is often heated to change its color, so keep the chips clear of the glowing tip and the ash line.
- Finish the burn and put the stick out
Stay in the room while the stick burns, and keep it away from children and pets. When you finish, or before you leave the room, press the glowing tip into a fireproof dish until it's fully out; blowing on it can spread sparks. Let the ash cool before you empty the holder, and tuck the chips back into their bag.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock the Tiger’s Eye kit for readers and workers who want a warm-toned stone and a stick to burn in one small box. The eight sticks give you plenty of mornings to begin a task with a small ritual, and the chips go wherever you do, whether that’s a desk drawer or a coat pocket. The kit also makes an easy gift for someone starting a new job or a new chapter. If you’d like to build a bowl of small stones, my stones and crystals chips collection has more pieces to add.
Frequently Asked Questions
The band is chatoyancy, a shimmer produced by the fine fibers that run parallel through the stone. In tiger's eye the fibers lie parallel but slightly wavy, and for the fullest effect a stone is cut parallel to their length. Cutters usually shape tiger's eye as cabochons, smooth domed pieces, to show the band at its best.
Hawk's eye is the blue-gray form of the same fibrous quartz. It forms where the iron staining that gives tiger's eye its gold-brown color is missing or limited, and some pieces show both colors. Red tiger's eye gets its color from treatment. Wikipedia reports gentle heating for red stones, and minerals.net says some red or maroon material is dyed.
South Africa's Northern Cape Province is the chief source, according to minerals.net, which also lists Namibia, Australia, India and Thailand. The Gem Society names Australia, China, Namibia, England and the United States, and Wikipedia adds Myanmar, Brazil, Canada, Korea and Spain. Tiger's eye turns up wherever the fibrous rock formed, so the list of countries is long.
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