How to Cleanse Crystals? A Complete Guide (Advice Included)

Just like we bathe to remove dirt, grime, and germs from our body, crystals also require regular cleaning to remove the negativity silted on them.

Unclean crystals vibrate poorly, thus creating more harm than good. That’s why it’s recommended to clean crystals regularly.😊 When you clean crystals, they become charged with positivity and amass the power to manifest intentions besides spreading good vibration in the space they’re kept in.

All that being said, cleaning crystals physically is a whole other thing from cleansing them spiritually.📝 There are many ways to remove negativity from crystals via rituals concerning light, sound, touch, smoke, smell, and others.

Today we will learn the complete guide to cleansing crystals using the below topics:

• Why do you need to cleanse crystals and when is the perfect time to do it?
• Difference between cleansing and charging crystals.
• What are the ways to physically clean crystals and what to remember when doing so?
• Top 10 ways to cleanse crystals spiritually and your stepwise guide for doing it.
• How to pick the best method for cleansing crystals?
• How to cleanse healing crystal jewelry?
• FAQ on crystal cleansing.

Why and when do you need to cleanse your crystals?

You should cleanse crystals regularly because crystals absorb negativity while spreading positivity. ⚖️

Moreover, after intense energy rituals and prolonged intervals, these magical stones get drained easily. Resetting them with cleansing rituals helps to align their vibrations correctly and restore them to their natural conditions.

Cleansing healing stones isn’t a new craze. In fact, it has roots in both European and Eastern belief systems.

• European beliefs vouch that when crystals are used by sinners, their positive traits get diminished or even disappear in their entirety. Once such a thing happens, crystals need to be sanctified before using them again.
• When it comes to the Hindu belief system, purification of stones was done before every ritual and typically with the holy water collected from the river Ganga or by using raw milk to enhance healing rocks to their original powers.
• In ancient Chinese practices, cleansing healing stones under fresh running water was a general practice to replenish their good energy.

Today, cleansing crystals is the first step to working with any crystal.✅ It helps to lock the energies of your ritual easily when you clean the stones that you’re going to use.

When is the best time to cleanse crystals?

While it’s ideal to cleanse crystals that haven’t been purified for a long time, there are other ways to find out if your crystals need cleansing.

• Whether you get a new crystal as a gift or through the mail, cleanse it up before engaging with it.
• If you’re wearing a crystal every day to the office or anywhere outside, cleansing it at the end of the day will remove the negative vibrations it picked from all the people and their energies you came across.
• After someone else touches your crystal, cleanse the rock to remove their energies and intentions.
• When intuition tells you to purify any healing crystals it’s naturally the best time to cleanse them.
• Special atmospheric events like the lunar eclipse, full moon, and new moon are ideal for purification because positive energies are immensely strong at this time.🌕

Cleansing crystals vs. Charging crystals: What’s the difference?

⚠️While many crystal users mistakenly use cleansing and charging interchangeably, both are quite distinct from each other.

Cleansing your crystal is defined as purifying it. In short, you are removing the negative vibrations and energies that are sediment on the crystal in such a process. It’s also a way to reset the energies of crystals. Think of cleansing as tidying up your dirty laptop with a microfiber cloth.

On the other hand, charging your crystal is like plugging-in a laptop without any battery-charge. Upon using the energy of crystals, we’re actually discharging the positivity within it. So once the positive charge within such a rock is drained, the reduction of charge builds up as negativity.

Hence, a clean crystal must be charged to manifest your intentions. And that’s why when you charge a crystal after resetting it, you are adding positive energy to it.

Physical cleaning vs. Spiritual cleansing

Cleaning a crystal physically isn’t the same as cleansing it energetically.

You are only removing unwanted things from its surface like dirt, dust, and grime when cleaning it physically. But when you’re cleansing a crystal, that’s when you remove the negative vibrations that are absorbed by it. Both are completely different and necessary for maintaining crystals in their best condition.

Just as bathing would only clean your body, cleaning only removes dirt from crystals. You need to think to cleanse your mind and crystals need equivalent energies to remove negative energies that are sediment on it.

How to clean crystals physically and what to keep in mind when doing so?

Not all crystals can be cleaned in water, no matter how dirty they are. Below you will find the toxic elements found in crystals so that you can keep them away from water.

• Aluminum in crystals: alexandrite, aventurine, blue sapphire, dalmatian jasper, emerald, feldspar, garnet, iolite, kunzite, labradorite, lepidolite, moldavite, moonstone, morganite, prehnite, ruby, sodalite, spinel, sugilite, sunstone, tanzanite, topaz, tourmaline, and unakite, zoisite.
• Copper in crystals: amazonite, azurite, gem silica, malachite, smithsonite, and turquoise.
• Iron oxide in crystals: hematite.  
• Calcium carbonate in crystals: aragonite.
• Sulfur in crystals: boji stones, lapis lazuli.
• Fluoride in crystals: fluorite.
• Sulfide in crystals: chalcopyrite, chrysocolla, pyrite.
• Mercury in crystals: cinnabar.
• Copper cyclosilicate in crystals: dioptase.
• Carcinogens in crystals: beryllium.
• Asbestos in crystals: serpentine and tiger eye.
• Zirconium in crystals: zircon.
• Crystals soluble in water: selenite.

How to clean crystals without water?

You can gently rub tumbled or polished crystals with a dry or lightly-damp cloth to remove dust and oils from them instead of soaking them in water. For rugged stones, use a soft-bristle brush to remove the dirt and dust every few weeks.

How to cleanse crystals energetically? Top 10 ways explained

When it comes to cleansing the negativity off of a crystal, there are many ways to do it.

Let’s find out more about it:

Light

You can use natural lights like sunlight and moonlight or manmade light like candlelight to cleanse crystals.

When using natural light, all you need to do is keep the crystals under the sun or moon for a few hours to repel the negativity on it.

Here’s a video to help you cleanse crystals under sunlight:

Wind

Breath or "prana" energy regulates the flow of "life energy" and that’s why breathwork can cleanse crystals that are small, such as palm-sized healing stones.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Hold your crystal on the same level as your face in your dominant hand.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Imagine cleansing the crystals.
4. Take a deep breath.
5. Exhale onto the stone.
6. Repeat it three or more times.

Water

Water is the best medium to cleanse away negativity from your crystals. You can cleanse crystals with four types of water.🌊

Take a look at them below in their order of importance.

Saltwater

1. Take a fist full of the Himalayan pink salt or common sea salt.
2. Place it in a bowl.
3. Add water to dissolve the salt.
4. Submerge the crystals in the bowl.
5. Let it soak for six to twelve hours.
6. Throw away the saltwater afterward.

Freshwater

1. Place your crystals to be cleaned in a mesh bag.
2. Hold it under running freshwater like streams, springs, rivers, or lakes.
3. Continue to hold it under running water for a few minutes.

Rainwater

1. Take your healing crystals and place them in a bag of cloth.
2. Hold/keep it under the falling rain for a few minutes.
3. Dry it using a soft cloth.

Tapwater 

1. Pick a crystal with your dominant hand.
2. Hold it under running tap water for thirty seconds or more.
3. Alternatively, keep the crystals soaked in cool tap water for 20 to 30 minutes.

Soil

Healing stones come from Mother Earth and that’s why it’s a good way to clean them by burying them in the soil so that they can absorb the vibrations of the earth. You can bury crystals in clay, flowerpot, sand, or garden soil.

This is how to do it:

1. Take crystals to be buried.
2. Dig a hole in the soil.
3. Bury the stone three inches deep.
4. Don’t disturb until a week or until the full moon has passed.

Rice

Rice is known to balance the energy that exists between earth and heaven by absorbing negativity. When compared to white rice, brown rice is less-refined and more-so in its natural state and hence, a better medium to cleanse healing stones.

The following shows you how to cleanse healing stones with brown rice:

1. Take your crystals to be cleansed in the dominant hand.
2. Bury it in a bowl of brown rice.
3. Ensure that the crystal is fully buried in the rice.
4. Let it remain buried for one to three days.⌛
5. Throw the rice away afterward.

Here’s a video to help you cleanse crystals with rice.

Sound

Another way to cleanse crystals is by using acoustic vibrations or gentle classical music. You can do so in three ways as shown below:

• Gong: Hold your crystals in the dominant hand and let them get cleansed in a sea of gong healing sounds for a few minutes.
• Singing bowl: Place the crystal inside the Tibetan singing bowl or underneath it before running the mallet on the edges of the bowl to create vibrational energy to cleanse crystals using brain theta waves.
• Clapping your hands: Place crystals on the table in front of you and clap your hands as loudly as you can over them. Do it a few times to eliminate the negative vibrations.

Other crystals

You can also remove negativity settled on a crystal by using other crystals that don’t need cleansing such as clear quartz, selenite, or black tourmaline. To cleanse using these crystals, all you need to do is circle these over the ones you want to clean.

You can also keep crystals to be cleansed in a geode for a day or two as well. Another way is to keep crystals that need cleaning over a plate made of clear quartz or selenite.

Smoke

One of the ancient ways of cleansing is by using the smoke of sacred herbs. It’s capable of removing negativity from crystals because smoke can attach to bad vibrations. That’s why it’s used for purification in Christian, Hindu, and Aztec rituals.

All you need to do is light up a sacred herb like palo santo, cedarwood, sage, sandalwood, or camphor and waft the smoke onto healing crystals for a few minutes.

Touch

A brilliant way to cleanse crystals that have absorbed negativity is by smudging them with sacred herbs. This is especially good for people who have a problem with smoke. All you need to cleanse this way is by rubbing crystals with sacred herbs like sage, cedarwood, palo santo, sandalwood, or basil in a circle about three times.  

Thoughts

Our thoughts are powerful mediums to remove negativity too.

Here’s how to cleanse crystals with thoughts:

• Mantra/Affirmations: Chants are capable of combining the vibrations of thought and sound to create a powerful cleansing medium. They act as prayers. All you’ve to do is say something like "crystal clear" at the crystal while holding it in your hands a few times to cleanse it.  
• Visualization: Your thought waves are powerful enough to clean the crystal without sounds too. Hold the crystal you want to clean in the dominant hand and visualize cleaning it for a few minutes.

How to choose the right way to cleanse crystals?

Now that you know how to cleanse different crystals, it’s time to find out the best way to cleanse your crystals based on the things at hand like time, convenience, effect, preferences, and risks.

• Light: If you don’t have a lot of time, keeping crystals under the sunlight is enough to cleanse the bad vibrations off them. But if you’re handling crystals like amethyst, zircon, kunzite, topaz, and yellow sapphire, prolonged exposure to sunlight can fade their color.💡 In such a case, leave them overnight, under the light of the moon or candlelight. Go for candlelight cleansing only if you have white candles.
• Wind: This is another way to cleanse crystals when you don’t have any other crystals at hand. But keep in mind that this works only when you’re quite experienced with breathwork exercises.
• Water: If your crystals are safe in the water, you can cleanse them with sea salt, freshwater, rainwater, or tap water. But, not everyone might have sea salt or a stream nearby. In that case, simple tap water will do. Remember to avoid cleansing crystals with saltwater if their Mohs hardness is lower than salt. Also, avoid the first rain to cleanse crystals as it’s acidic and unsafe for most crystals.
• Soil: If you don’t have a garden or private land, take a flower pot and bury the stone you want to cleanse inside the soil. Make sure to clean it thoroughly before using it again. Keep in mind not to bury crystals that have iron in them.
• Rice: If you don’t have salt or soil at bay, but have brown rice, just soak your unclean crystal in the rice for a few days. 📝But always throw the rice afterward.
• Sound: Everyone doesn’t have a huge gong in their home. Hence, use a Tibetan singing bowl. If that’s not an option either, just clap your hands over the unclean stone repeatedly.
• Other crystals: If you don’t have a lot of time, but have self-cleansing crystals like clear quartz or selenite, all you need to do is circle clear quartz or selenite over the stones you want to clean a few times.  
• Smoke: Smoking herbs is a good way to clean the space but some users often feel choked or suffocated with smoke. Hence, skip it if you feel uneasy with smoke as your vibes are very important for a good cleansing ritual.
• Touch: The best alternative to smoking herbs is smudging, during which, you rub herbs like sage gently over crystals.
• Thoughts: Experienced crystal users, empaths, and psychics emanate powerful thought waves. And these can be used in several ways for cleansing healing stones. The easiest way to cleanse with thoughts is using mantras and the toughest way is with visualization and meditation.

Added bonus: How to cleanse your healing crystal jewelry?

From tumbled stones to wands, crystal plates, pendulums, earrings, pendants, and rings, there are many types of crystals available today. But cleansing loose crystals is vastly different from cleansing jewelry made of crystals.

If you’re an avid wearer of healing crystal jewelry, you already know it’s the best way to balance and charge your chakras throughout the day. But as they often contain metal components other than healing stones, you need to be careful when cleansing them. That’s why you need to know how exactly to cleanse such jewelry without tarnishing, scratching, or damaging it.

You already know ways to cleanse loose crystals from the points above. So now let’s see how to cleanse healing crystal jewelry below.

• Never immerse or soak healing crystal jewelry in harmful solutions or mixtures like saltwater, rainwater, tap water, or soil.
• The best way to physically clean healing crystal jewelry is with a soft-bristle brush or damp lint-free cloth.
• The best ways to energetically cleanse crystal jewelry is by using sunlight, moonlight, candlelight, rice, gong, Tibetan singing bowl, clear quartz, selenite, geode, herbal smoke, smudging, chants, and visualization.

Frequently asked questions about cleansing healing crystals

How often do I need to cleanse my crystals?

While there’s no hard and fast rule about cleansing crystals, the best time to do it is whenever you feel it has accumulated negativity or is imbalanced.🙂 For example, your crystal needs cleansing if someone touched it, if you had a traumatic experience, or simply if you feel that a crystal needs cleansing.

What are some ideal affirmations for cleansing crystals?

The best mantras for crystal cleansing are:

• Crystal clear
• I banish the negativity
• Release the bad vibrations
• Clear away the negativity
• Discharge the waste
• Wipe away the negativity
• I purify you
• Clear-up
• Purge the bad

How to keep/store my crystals after they’ve been cleansed?

The best way to protect cleansed crystals from absorbing negative energy is by storing them in bags made of silk or leather as they act as natural insulators.

Can I cleanse crystals in the snow and ocean?

Yes, you can cleanse crystals in snow and the ocean. When cleansing with snow, keep it atop the snow for a few minutes rather than burying it underneath. Make sure to wrap the crystals in a cloth bag and hold onto it before submerging the bag in the ocean, let alone it flows away.

Get started with crystal cleansing

Just as you wash clothes that get dirty, crystals need to be cleansed regularly to remove negative energy absorbed by them. The best time to clean crystals is when you buy them, when someone else touches them, if you wear them every day, or simply if you get the feeling that they need to be cleansed.

Cleansing is the first step to work with crystals and it’s typically done before charging them for setting intentions.

Keep in mind that cleansing a crystal energetically is absolutely different from cleaning it physically. While you can clean a healing stone to remove dirt and grime using water or cleaning brushes, energetic cleaning requires other mediums.

You can remove bad vibrations from crystals using breathwork, visualization, sunlight, moonlight, candlelight, saltwater, freshwater, tapwater, garden soil, flowerpot, brown rice, gong, singing bowl, clap of hands, clear quartz, selenite, palo santo, cedarwood, sage, and sandalwood, camphor.

Based on the properties of a crystal, your convenience, preferences, availability of things at hand, time of the month, and so on, it’s easy to pick the right method to cleanse crystals. When it comes to cleansing crystal jewelry, not all methods are practical as jewelry comes with components other than crystals like metal, rubber, etcetera. You can use light, sound, rice, touch, smoke, and thoughts to clean crystal jewelry to be on the safe side.

While you don’t need to be a quantum physicist to understand how to remove bad energy from crystals, a basic understanding of crystal metaphysics is important to clean them energetically. Take a look at our complete crystal healing guide to grasp the fundamental concepts better.