Howlite Meaning: Properties, Chakra, How to Use and How to Cleanse

Howlite is a chalk-white borate mineral veined with gray that crystal traditions call the stone of patience: something to hold when anger arrives faster than words, sleep will not come, or the same thought keeps circling. This guide covers howlite meaning, its geology and color range, the chakra it is assigned, how practitioners actually use it, and how to cleanse a soft, porous stone without ruining it. It also shows how to tell white howlite from the dyed blue slabs sold as turquoise.

What does howlite mean in crystal healing?

The howlite meaning most often quoted in crystal healing is patience, along with everything downstream of patience: a cooled temper, quieter thoughts, and the ability to wait without chewing on the wait. Practitioners call howlite the stone of patience and the stone of awareness, and a few call it, less kindly, the stone that tells you to be quiet. The reputation matches the look of the material. Howlite is chalk white with gray or charcoal veining that spreads through it like ink bleeding through paper, so the eye reads emptiness with structure, a mind cleared but not scattered. Where many stones are described as amplifiers, howlite is described as an absorber. Crystal workers hand it to people whose difficulty is excess rather than lack: too much rumination, and too much irritation arriving faster than the words for it. The instruction that comes with howlite is almost always physical rather than visual. You do not gaze at howlite. You hold it, run a thumb along the veining, and let the count of breaths lengthen. Howlite also carries a reputation for self-honesty. Traditions that use it for shadow-adjacent work say howlite does not dramatize what it shows you. It hands over the memory or the motive flatly, at a temperature you can actually examine.

Howlite is a young stone in the tradition, and that shapes the howlite meaning available to it. The mineral was only described in the nineteenth century and only reached bead shops and lapidary catalogs in quantity in the twentieth, so it carries no Egyptian burial lore, no Vedic assignment, and no entry in a medieval lapidary. Howlite's associations were built by twentieth-century crystal writers and by the people who wore it, and they were built around what the material does in the hand. It is light, cool for a moment, soft enough to feel faintly chalky, and cheap enough that nobody guards it. That last quality matters more than it sounds. Howlite is the stone people lose in coat pockets and leave in rental cars, and a stone you are not anxious about is a stone you will actually carry. Because the lore is recent, howlite descriptions stay unusually consistent from source to source. No older competing tradition exists to argue with, so the same cluster keeps recurring: patience, calm speech, sleep, release of old resentment, and support for study. When a crystal book adds something exotic to howlite, the addition is usually borrowed from the blue dye rather than from the mineral, which is why buyers should know what they are holding before they read a meaning off the label.

Why is howlite called the stone of patience?

Howlite is called the stone of patience because crystal traditions assign it the pause between provocation and response. The practice attached to it is small and repeatable: when irritation rises, take hold of the howlite, feel the veined surface under the thumb, and delay the reply by the length of three slow breaths.

What does the gray veining in howlite symbolize?

The gray veining in howlite is read as a visible record of pressure, kept rather than hidden. Practitioners treat the web of lines as a reminder that a calm surface is not a blank one, and that howlite holds its own history without letting that history govern the present moment.

Is howlite a calming stone or an energizing stone?

Howlite is a calming stone in every tradition that uses it. Nobody reaches for howlite to raise energy, drive, or heat, because it is chosen to lower the volume rather than lift it. Crystal workers who want lift pair howlite with a warmer stone instead of asking howlite itself to supply it.

What is howlite geologically, and what colors does howlite come in?

Howlite is a calcium borosilicate hydroxide, a borate mineral that forms in evaporite deposits alongside borax, colemanite, and ulexite, the sediments left behind when mineral-rich desert lakes dry out. It almost always occurs as nodules: irregular white masses with a lumpy, cauliflower-like exterior that looks more like something dug out of a garden than a crystal. Well-formed howlite crystals exist but are genuinely rare, small, and tabular, and the best-known crystallized material comes from Tick Canyon in southern California. Natural howlite comes in one color range, and that range is white. It covers bright chalk white, off-white, cream, and pale gray, threaded with veining that runs from soft gray to near black. The veining is the identifying feature of the howlite stone. It is irregular, spidery, and often closes into cells across a polished surface, so a tumbled howlite bead looks like a small map of dry riverbeds. Howlite is soft, roughly 3.5 on the Mohs scale, which puts it below a steel blade and only a little above a fingernail. It is also porous, opaque, and dull to faintly waxy once polished. Those two traits, softness and porosity, explain nearly everything else about howlite: why it dyes so easily, why it chips on tile floors, and why it must never be scrubbed or soaked.

The howlite in a bead shop has been through more processing than most crystals on the shelf. Raw nodules are cut away from a chalky matrix, and because the material is soft it cuts fast, polishes quickly, and throws a great deal of dust, which is why carvers wear masks when working it rather than from any hazard in the finished stone. Softness is also why howlite is sold mostly as tumbled pebbles, round beads, palm stones, and simple carved skulls or hearts rather than as faceted gems. Facets need a hard stone to hold a crisp edge, and howlite will round off its own corners in a pocket over a year of daily carrying. Porosity is the other governing trait. Howlite drinks up anything liquid, which is why it takes dye better than almost any common lapidary material and why perfume, hand cream, and cooking oil leave permanent gray shadows on a white bead. Collectors who keep howlite bracelets in rotation usually notice color drift first at the wrist, where sunscreen sits against the beads. Nothing has gone wrong with the stone when that happens. It has simply absorbed its environment, which is a fitting habit for a mineral the tradition already calls an absorber.

Who discovered howlite and where was it first found?

Howlite was described by Henry How, a chemist and geologist working in Nova Scotia, after quarry workers near Windsor struck hard white nodules in a gypsum deposit in the 1860s. How first called the material silico-boro-calcite, and the mineral was later renamed howlite in his honor.

What is howlite made of?

Howlite is a calcium borosilicate hydroxide, meaning its structure combines calcium, boron, silicon, oxygen, and hydroxyl groups. The boron content is what ties howlite to desert borate deposits and why it turns up near borax and colemanite rather than in the granite pegmatites that produce quartz and tourmaline.

Where is howlite mined today?

Howlite comes chiefly from borate deposits in the American Southwest, with California the dominant commercial source, alongside the original Nova Scotia occurrence. Material has also been reported from Turkey and Mexico. Most howlite reaches retail through bulk lapidary channels, so a strand of beads rarely carries any locality at all.

What are howlite's metaphysical properties?

Howlite properties, as crystal traditions describe them, cluster around cooling and clearing rather than protecting or attracting. The five that appear in nearly every account are patience under provocation, release of stored anger, quieter sleep, steadier memory during study, and honest self-reflection without self-punishment. Howlite is not credited with abundance, romance, or psychic opening, and practitioners who need those reach for other stones entirely. The anger association is the strongest and the most specific. In this tradition howlite is not said to suppress anger but to slow its release, so what would have come out as a slammed door comes out as a sentence instead. Crystal workers describe howlite as taking the charge off a reaction while leaving the information inside it, which is why the stone appears in anger-management style practice far more often than in protection work. The sleep association follows from the same logic. Howlite is placed under a pillow or on a bedside table for people whose insomnia is mental rather than physical, the kind driven by replaying a conversation. The memory and study association is older in the crystal literature than most people assume, and it is usually framed as retention through calm: an unhurried mind holds detail better than an agitated one. Howlite is treated as the calm, not the detail.

One of the howlite properties gets less attention than it deserves. Howlite is described as a teaching stone for people who cannot stand waiting. In practice that means it is handed to somebody working through a slow process with no visible progress: a long recovery, a court case, a manuscript, a fertility journey, or a career shift that will take another two years. Crystal workers who assign howlite for these situations do not promise it speeds anything up. The claim runs the other way. Howlite is said to make the length itself tolerable, so the person stops burning energy fighting the timeline. The second underused property is speech. Because howlite is tied to the pause before a reaction, some practitioners keep a piece specifically for difficult conversations, held in the non-dominant hand during a hard phone call or set on the table during a mediation. The intention is not silence but accuracy, saying the true thing rather than the sharp one. Howlite also appears in practices for people who apologize compulsively, on the reasoning that the same pause which stops a snapped reply stops a reflexive one. In both cases the stone works as a physical bookmark for a habit somebody is deliberately trying to change.

Does howlite help with anger?

Howlite is the stone most often assigned to anger in modern crystal practice. The described action is delay rather than suppression: howlite is held while the surge passes, so the response arrives as words rather than volume. Practitioners keep a howlite pebble wherever arguments usually start, which for most households means the kitchen.

Is howlite used for insomnia?

Howlite is widely used for insomnia driven by a busy mind. The common method is a tumbled howlite stone inside the pillowcase, or a howlite bracelet left on the nightstand. Traditions pair it with a wind-down routine, since howlite is credited with quieting thought loops rather than inducing sleep on its own.

What are howlite properties for study and memory?

Howlite properties for study center on retention through calm rather than sharpened focus. Students keep a howlite palm stone on the desk during revision and carry that same piece into the exam room, using it as an anchor: the stone present while the material was learned is present while it is recalled.

Which chakra does howlite work with?

The howlite chakra is the crown, the center at the top of the head associated with stillness, perspective, and connection beyond the personal. White stones are routinely assigned to the crown in modern chakra practice, and howlite's chalk-white body with its faint gray web fits that color logic exactly. Practitioners place howlite at the crown when the complaint is a mind that will not stop producing, since crown work in this system aims at quieting the generator rather than solving each thought it makes. Howlite carries a secondary assignment to the third eye, the point between the brows. That link comes from the memory and clarity associations rather than from color, and it is described as supporting calm perception rather than visions or psychic opening. Practitioners who use howlite at the third eye are usually working on discernment: seeing a situation as it actually is, at a temperature where they can act on it. A smaller thread of practice puts howlite at the throat, on the grounds that its main gift is speech arriving after the pause rather than during the heat. That placement is less standard, and it tends to be used alongside a crown or third eye placement rather than instead of one. Almost nobody assigns howlite to the lower chakras.

Crown work with howlite has a practical shape to it. The stone sits on the floor or cushion just above the head of a person lying down, not on the skull itself, because at 3.5 on the Mohs scale a piece that rolls off a forehead onto hard flooring will chip. Sessions are short by design. Ten to fifteen minutes with howlite at the crown is the usual instruction, and practitioners describe the effect as a lowering of internal volume rather than an upward rush, which sets howlite apart from the crown stones people choose for expansion. Because howlite is read as an absorber, some practitioners rotate pieces rather than reusing the same one session after session. The reasoning inside the tradition is that a stone which takes on agitation needs clearing more often than a stone which channels it, so a howlite piece used at the crown through a week of poor sleep gets cleansed before its next placement. Practitioners who keep a full set of chakra stones often hold two howlite pieces for exactly this rhythm, one resting while the other is in use. It costs almost nothing to do, which is part of why howlite lends itself to the habit.

Where do you place howlite for crown chakra work?

For crown chakra work, howlite is placed on the mat just above the top of the head while lying down, rather than balanced on the skull. Seated practitioners hold howlite in upturned palms instead. Sessions of ten to fifteen minutes are standard, since howlite is used for settling rather than long expansion.

Does howlite work with the third eye chakra?

Howlite has a secondary third eye assignment, drawn from its clarity and memory links rather than its color. Practitioners rest a small howlite piece between the brows to steady perception before journaling or a decision. In this tradition howlite is not used to induce visions; it is used to cool the lens.

Can howlite be used in a full chakra layout?

Howlite fits a full chakra layout at the crown position, and sometimes doubles at the third eye when a second piece is available. It is not used at the root, sacral, or solar plexus, where warmer and denser stones are chosen. Layouts including howlite tend to be settling sequences rather than activating ones.

What are howlite's benefits in daily life?

Howlite benefits are mostly small, repeatable, and tied to a moment rather than a mood. The tradition claims five in particular. A short fuse gets longer, because howlite carried in a pocket works as the physical cue to wait before answering. Sleep arrives with less argument, which is why howlite is the standard under-pillow stone in calming practice. Resentment loosens, especially the kind kept for years about a person no longer in your life. Study and revision feel less frantic. And waiting itself becomes survivable during long processes that show no visible movement. None of those are dramatic, which is precisely the point of howlite in the tradition and why crystal workers describe it as a maintenance stone rather than a breakthrough stone. It gets chosen by people who are not in crisis but are worn down: carers, and anybody in a job that involves absorbing other people's frustration all day. Howlite benefits are also social in a way that is easy to miss. Because the stone is inexpensive and unremarkable to look at, a howlite bracelet passes unnoticed in offices, courtrooms, and hospital wards where a large or colorful crystal would draw comment. Practitioners who need a discreet anchor at work reach for howlite for that reason alone.

The people who report the most from howlite tend to be those who use a single piece for a long time. There is a habit in crystal practice of buying broadly and carrying nothing, and howlite runs against it, because a cheap white pebble with no resale interest is easy to commit to. Practitioners describe a howlite worry stone carried for two or three years developing a visible sheen where the thumb sits and a slight rounding at the edges, and they treat that wear as evidence of the practice rather than damage to the stone. Howlite is also the piece most often given away. Because a strand of howlite beads costs so little, practitioners hand pieces to friends going through slow difficulties, which turns howlite into a social object in a way that expensive stones never are. Within the tradition that transfer carries meaning: a howlite pebble given by somebody who used it through their own long wait is described as carrying the pattern of that patience with it. Some practitioners cleanse a gifted howlite before use for that reason, and others deliberately do not, preferring to keep the giver's intention sitting in the stone.

What are howlite benefits for students and exams?

Howlite benefits for students are framed as calm retention. The routine stays consistent: keep one howlite palm stone on the desk through revision, handle it during breaks, and bring that same stone into the exam room as a familiar object. The claim is steadier recall under pressure, not faster learning.

Which zodiac signs are associated with howlite?

Howlite is most often assigned to Gemini in modern crystal practice, on the reasoning that a quick, scattering mind benefits from a settling stone. Virgo is the common second assignment, linked to overthinking and self-criticism. Howlite holds no traditional birthstone status, so these pairings come from contemporary sources rather than old ones.

Is howlite good for grief?

Howlite is used in grief work for the waiting phase rather than the acute one. Practitioners hand howlite to someone months into a loss, when the intensity has dropped but the process is still long, and describe it as making the slowness bearable. Softer heart-centered stones are chosen for the early weeks.

How do you use howlite in daily practice?

A howlite crystal is used by contact, not by display. The five common methods are a pocket or worry stone handled through the day, a tumbled piece inside the pillowcase for sleep, a bracelet or mala worn where the wearer can reach it mid-conversation, a palm stone kept on a desk during study, and a placement at the crown during short meditation. Every one of them involves touching the stone. Howlite has almost no tradition as an ornament sitting on a shelf. The worry stone method is the most specific. Practitioners choose a flat howlite piece with a thumb-sized depression, keep it in the same pocket every day so reaching for it becomes automatic, and use it as a deliberate delay: hand into pocket, thumb across the veining, then answer. Repeated for a few weeks, the gesture starts arriving on its own when tension rises, which is the whole mechanism the tradition is pointing at. Howlite mala beads are the second distinctive use. A 108-bead howlite mala is heavy enough to feel through a full round and light enough to hold without strain, and the chalky surface gives a slight drag under the fingers that makes counting easy to track without looking down at the hand.

Pairings matter with howlite because the stone is described as one-note by design. Practitioners who want calm plus grounding pair howlite with a dark, dense stone and keep both in the same pocket. Those working on sleep pair howlite with amethyst on the nightstand. Students pair howlite with clear quartz on the desk, following the tradition's logic that quartz strengthens whatever sits beside it. What crystal workers avoid is putting howlite alongside stones chosen for heat and drive, since the two intentions pull against each other in one pocket. Placement around a home follows the same rule of contact and proximity. Howlite goes on the nightstand, beside the kettle, on the desk, in the car door pocket. It does not go on a high shelf. A practice that comes up often is keeping one howlite piece at the spot in the house where arguments actually start, which for most households is the kitchen rather than the living room. Practitioners also keep a howlite pebble in a bag on travel days, where delays are guaranteed and the entire point of the stone is tolerating a wait that somebody else controls. An airport queue is the situation howlite was practically made for in this tradition.

Should you sleep with howlite under your pillow?

Sleeping with howlite under the pillow is the single most common howlite practice. Use a tumbled piece with no sharp edges, slip it inside the pillowcase rather than loose beneath the pillow so it cannot end up on the floor, and cleanse it weekly, since the tradition treats howlite as a stone that takes on what it settles.

Can you wear howlite every day?

Howlite can be worn daily, with one caveat: at 3.5 on the Mohs scale it scratches against almost everything, so a howlite bracelet worn on the writing hand will dull within months. Practitioners wear howlite on the non-dominant wrist, remove it for washing up, and accept surface wear as part of a working stone.

Which crystals pair well with howlite?

Howlite pairs well with stones sharing its cooling direction: amethyst for sleep, clear quartz to strengthen intention on a study desk, and black tourmaline when calm needs a ground beneath it. Practitioners avoid pairing howlite with stones chosen for heat, drive, or stimulation, since that combination works against the point of carrying it.

How do you cleanse and charge howlite without damaging it?

Howlite is cleansed dry. At roughly 3.5 on the Mohs scale and highly porous, howlite is one of the crystals most easily ruined by standard cleansing advice, so the safe methods are the ones that never wet it: smoke from incense or a dried herb bundle, sound from a bowl or a bell, a night resting on a selenite plate or a bed of dry quartz points, or burial in a bowl of dry rice or dry earth for a few hours. Practitioners who work with breath and intention alone use that approach on howlite more readily than on most stones, precisely because it cannot harm the surface. Three methods should be avoided outright with howlite. Salt water pits and clouds the stone and will strip dye from a colored piece. Prolonged soaking in plain water works into the pores and can leave howlite chalky or blotched as it dries. Ultrasonic and steam cleaners, sold for hard gemstones, will damage howlite fast. Charging follows the same restraint. Moonlight is the standard choice, especially on the night of the full moon, left on a windowsill inside the glass rather than out in the dew. Direct midday sun is avoided, since it fades dyed howlite badly.

How often to cleanse howlite depends on what the stone has been doing. A piece kept under a pillow through a stretch of bad nights is cleansed weekly in most practices, because the tradition reads howlite as an absorber, and absorbers are held to a shorter cycle than amplifiers. A howlite bracelet worn all day gets the same weekly rhythm. A piece sitting untouched on a desk can go a month. Practitioners often notice the timing physically before they think about it, when the stone stops feeling like an anchor and starts feeling like an object in a pocket. One warning belongs here because it is specific to this mineral. Howlite is boron-bearing, so it should never be dropped directly into water intended for drinking. Practitioners who make crystal-charged water use the indirect method, standing a sealed glass of water inside a bowl that holds the howlite so the two never touch. That approach protects the stone as well, since howlite left sitting in water will soften at the surface and, if dyed, will bleed color into the glass. The indirect method solves both problems at once, and it is the standard instruction for soft, porous, and metal-bearing stones generally.

Can howlite go in water?

Howlite should not go in water. Its porosity means water works into the stone rather than running off it, leaving a chalky or blotched surface as it dries, and dyed howlite bleeds color. A quick wipe with a barely damp cloth followed by immediate drying is the most water howlite should ever meet.

Can howlite be cleansed with salt?

Howlite should not be cleansed with salt. Salt water attacks the porous surface and lifts dye, and dry salt is abrasive enough to scratch a stone sitting at 3.5 on the Mohs scale. Practitioners who prefer a burial method use dry rice or dry earth for howlite instead of a salt bowl.

Should howlite be charged in sunlight?

Howlite should not be charged in direct sunlight, and dyed blue howlite fades noticeably after only a few long exposures. Moonlight on an indoor windowsill is the standard charging method for howlite, alongside sound and a night on a selenite plate. Full moon nights are the usual choice among practitioners.

How do you spot fake or dyed howlite?

Dyed howlite is spotted by looking at where the color sits, and fake howlite is mostly a labeling problem rather than a manufacturing one. Because howlite is porous and white, it takes dye better than nearly any lapidary material, and dyed blue howlite has been sold as turquoise for decades under trade names including turquenite and howlite turquoise. The clearest test is the veining. In real turquoise the matrix is host rock and reads as brown, black, or golden lines running through blue. In dyed howlite the dye pools deepest in those veins, so the lines appear as a darker version of the same blue rather than as a different material. Three checks settle most cases. A chipped edge or a drill hole on dyed howlite often shows white underneath, since dye rarely penetrates evenly to the core. A cotton swab with acetone rubbed on a hidden spot lifts blue from dyed howlite and does nothing to turquoise. And hardness separates them decisively, because turquoise sits around 5 to 6 on the Mohs scale while howlite at 3.5 scratches easily under a steel pin. Price is the fourth signal. A long strand of even, richly colored blue beads sold for a few dollars is dyed howlite.

White howlite has labeling traps of its own. It is regularly sold as white turquoise or white buffalo turquoise, both of which are marketing rather than mineralogy when applied to this material, and it also gets dyed in colors turquoise never comes in: coral red, deep purple, lime green, and a lapis-imitating navy with no pyrite flecking anywhere in it. None of that is fraudulent when the seller discloses it. It becomes a problem when a dyed howlite bracelet is sold with the metaphysical description of the stone it imitates, so a buyer ends up performing turquoise practices with a howlite crystal in hand. The other common confusion is magnesite. Magnesite is also white with gray veining, also porous, also dyed blue, and often sold interchangeably with howlite in bead shops. Magnesite tends toward a brighter, more porcelain-like white with veining that is finer and more crackled, while howlite veining is broader and more web-like, and magnesite is slightly harder. For metaphysical purposes many practitioners treat the two as near-equivalents, but a buyer paying for one should know which arrived. Ask the seller directly, since honest bead dealers generally know and will say.

Is blue howlite real?

Blue howlite is real howlite that has been dyed, because howlite does not occur blue in nature. The trade sells it as turquenite or howlite turquoise, and it is perfectly legitimate material when described honestly. Anything advertised as naturally blue howlite is either mislabeled dyed stock or a different mineral entirely.

How can you tell howlite from turquoise?

Howlite is told from turquoise by hardness and by veining. Howlite scratches under a steel pin at 3.5 on the Mohs scale, while turquoise at 5 to 6 does not. Turquoise veining is brown or black host rock, whereas dyed howlite veining is a darker shade of the same blue, because dye collects there.

What is the difference between howlite and magnesite?

Howlite and magnesite are separate minerals that look alike: both white, porous, veined, and commonly dyed for the bead trade. Howlite is a borosilicate with broad, web-like gray veining, while magnesite is a carbonate, slightly harder, with a whiter body and finer crackle veining. Sellers frequently label one as the other.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is howlite good for?

Howlite is used for patience, for anger that arrives faster than words, for insomnia driven by a busy mind, for calm during study, and for endurance through long waits with no visible progress. Crystal traditions describe howlite as an absorber that lowers internal volume rather than a stone that attracts or protects, which is why it is treated as a daily maintenance stone instead of a breakthrough one.

Is howlite a real crystal or is it man-made?

Howlite is a real, naturally occurring mineral, first described from a gypsum quarry in Nova Scotia in the nineteenth century and named for the chemist Henry How. What is man-made is the color. The blue, red, and green howlite on bead shop shelves is natural white howlite that has been dyed, since the mineral is porous enough to take color almost anywhere it is applied.

What chakra is howlite?

Howlite is a crown chakra stone, assigned there for its white body and its association with quieting mental activity. A secondary third eye assignment comes from howlite's clarity and memory links, and a minority practice places howlite at the throat for measured speech. Howlite is not used at the root, sacral, or solar plexus centers, where practitioners choose warmer and denser stones instead.

Can howlite get wet?

Howlite should not get wet. At roughly 3.5 on the Mohs scale and distinctly porous, howlite absorbs water rather than shedding it, which leaves a dull, blotched surface once the stone dries, and dyed pieces bleed color into the water. Remove howlite jewelry before washing up, showering, or swimming, and cleanse the stone with smoke, sound, or dry rice instead of a rinse.

How do you cleanse howlite?

Cleanse howlite dry. Smoke from incense or a dried herb bundle, sound from a singing bowl or a bell, a night resting on a selenite plate, or a few hours buried in dry rice all suit the stone. Avoid salt, soaking, and ultrasonic cleaners entirely. A weekly cycle suits howlite kept under a pillow or worn daily, while monthly is enough for a piece that simply sits on a desk.

Why is my blue howlite fading?

Blue howlite fades because the color is dye rather than mineral, and dye breaks down under ultraviolet light. Sunlit windowsills, car dashboards, and long days outdoors all pull the blue toward gray, while soap, salt water, and sunscreen speed the same process up. Store dyed howlite out of direct light, wipe it dry after wearing, and charge it in moonlight rather than sun.

Who should not use howlite?

Howlite suits almost everyone, but practitioners note it is a poor fit when the difficulty is low energy rather than excess. Somebody flat, unmotivated, or already withdrawn is usually pointed toward a warmer stone, since howlite works by lowering volume rather than raising it. Howlite is also the wrong choice for anyone who wants a durable heirloom piece, given how readily it chips and scratches.