Opal Beads
Opal beads are hydrated silica, a solid with no crystal structure that holds several percent water and forms in every color from milky white to orange and purple. This collection holds every opal we stock: Australian boulder opal and green opal, Mexican fire opal and morado opal, yellow honey opal, fire lace opal and Mongolian opal, in a range of finishes and shapes for bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
Appearance
Most of these are common opal, with body color but no play of color, which is what makes it practical for beads. Mexican fire opal is translucent orange to red; morado opal is a Mexican common opal in violet and lavender with white or brown matrix; yellow honey opal is a warm translucent amber; Australian green opal is an opaque apple green; Mongolian opal is pale cream and tan. Australian boulder opal is thin seams of opal bonded to dark ironstone, so each bead shows brown matrix cut by flashes of color.
Fire lace opal is a trade name for a bronze to copper brown stone veined with common opal, and in some beads those veins fluoresce under ultraviolet light. A polished finish gives opal a soft, waxy glow rather than a glass shine; a matte finish makes it look like chalk. Opal is 5.5 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale and holds water, so keep it away from heat, very dry storage and sudden temperature change, which can cause fine cracks, and from perfume and household chemicals.
Formation and origin
Opal forms at low temperature when silica-rich water seeps into cracks and cavities in sandstone, volcanic rock or ironstone and slowly dries, leaving a gel of silica spheres that hardens over millions of years. Where the spheres are uniform and neatly stacked they diffract light into the play of color of precious opal; where they are irregular the result is common opal, colored by trace iron, manganese or organic matter. Australia produces most of the world's opal, Mexico's fire opal grows in rhyolite, Ethiopia and Peru supply much common opal, and Mongolia and East Africa produce the paler and honey-colored varieties.
Pairings
Dendritic beads: white opal and chalcedony with black branching inclusions, a quiet companion for colored opals of similar hardness.
Rhodonite beads: pink with black veins that sits well beside morado and boulder opal and wears at a similar 5.5 to 6.
African turquoise beads: a teal jasper with dark matrix that echoes boulder opal's ironstone and is harder for the wear points.
Meaning and Metaphysical Beliefs
Opal meaning has shifted over the centuries: Romans prized it as a stone of hope, and a 19th century novel gave it a reputation for bad luck that took decades to fade. In modern crystal traditions opal is associated with creativity, emotion and intuition, with fire opal linked to the sacral chakra and green and pink opals to the heart. These are traditional beliefs, not claims of physical effect.
