Caring For Your Opal Jewellery (and Some Myths Debunked)

Opals are
gorgeous stones with unique light reflecting qualities within the structure of
the stone, and an iridescent quality which makes them work with many different
colours. Some opals have a more defined
colour palette than others due to natural variations in colour and the paler
ones work with any colour, pairing beautifully with all shades and tones. Opals appear in a lot of art nouveau
jewellery because the qualities of the stone work well with the aesthetic, but
there are a lot of superstitions out there about opals, many of them negative.
There are
varied reasons behind these superstitions, but many of them are thought to stem
from the fragile nature of opals. The
fragility of the stone is something that you must pay attention to when owning
and wearing opal jewellery, as it is more easily damaged than other
materials. Gemstones all have a hardness
index, rated on the Mohs scale. Diamond
has a rating of 10, making it the hardest substance on the scale, while opals
come in between 5.5 – 6.5 meaning they are almost half the hardness of diamond. This is a lower end of the scale, this means
opals can be damaged by most other stones, metals and even glass.
Due to the
softer nature of the stone opals should be worn with care, and opal rings
shouldn't be worn with other rings on the same hand in case accidental damage
occurs. For the same reason you should
never sleep in opal jewellery and always remove it when washing up, gardening
or doing sporting activities where it could get knocked or damaged by chemicals
– even sweat counts as a chemical when it comes to jewellery care, so you may
consider keeping your opal jewellery for occasions when it can be safely
worn.
When storing
your opal jewellery ensure it is separated from other pieces by soft material
and that it can't move during transit.
It’s a good idea to wrap opal jewellery carefully so that the stone is
protected from any accidental damage, even from the chain the opal pendant
hangs on. Never hang opal jewellery from
jewellery trees or other display stands, because if it falls it could get
damaged, and there is a danger of other items or people brushing up against it,
knocking it off. If you want to clean
your opal jewellery take it to a professional jewellery cleaner, who will have
the right solutions to clean it without damaging it.
In the past
some gem cutters refused to work with opals because they would have been liable
for the cost if they broke it, and this is the source of some of the negative
superstitions about opals being bad luck.
More modern techniques have allowed opals to be handled with more care
and cut more precisely, so they are now no longer an unfavourable stone but the
legend persists. Sir Walter Scott may
also be responsible for the bad reputation opals have, as a character in his
1829 novel Anne of Geierstein wears an opal which gets splashed by holy
water and almost explodes, later killing the wearer.
Some of the
superstitions about opals are:
- an opal engagement ring means the
bride will soon be a widow
- opals should only ever be given
as a gift and not purchased for oneself
- opals should never be given as a
gift, and only bought for oneself
- wearing opals is bad luck unless
it's your birthstone (October)
- opals will lose their beauty once
the owner dies
These can all
be traced back to the issues of fragility, general superstitions and diamond
sellers promoting these negative associations to sell more diamonds; despite
the negative superstitions opals have been popular in modern jewellery from the
1800s onwards. Until 1912, Opals were
the American birthstone for October, which is when they were all replaced with
transparent gems.
Nowadays
while some superstitions persist we can understand how they came about, and why
in the modern world, with due care, we can safely wear and enjoy opals without
any bad luck befalling us, or the stone sustaining damage.
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