Shimmering with the light of sunbeams and moonbeams, opal is radiant in other-worldly beauty. This stone shifts and transforms, and seems to dance in an array of colors. Although its appearance is mesmerizing, its true beauty lies in the powers it provides. Well-matched to its supernatural looks, opal is tuned to cosmic consciousness. This mind and heart opening stone helps you to see the infinite possibilities that lay before you, allowing you to view each moment of your life as the true blessing that it is.
Serving as a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual, opal helps you to connect to divine wisdom. At all times, your guides and angels are trying to communicate with you, but sometimes the connection gets lost or gets a little fuzzy. Opal opens up your channels and tunes you to higher frequencies, so that communication between you and your guides becomes easier to access and easier to understand.
Opal is also renowned for its inspiring energy, helping to pull you out of any ruts. Sluggish energy is swept away, instead being replaced by refreshing and rejuvenating vibrations. Creativity and imagination are boosted, allowing you to turn each moment into beauty and art.
Absolutely dazzling in appearance and energy, opal reminds you that there is magic all around. If you want to keep this ethereal stone at full sparkle, shine, and potential, it is vital you care for it with proper and consistent maintenance. Cleaning it of residue and build-up is important, but you should also make time for spiritual cleansing.
Curious about the best ways to physically and spiritually cleanse your opal stones and jewelry? Read on for a step-by-step guide to both processes!
Why is it Important to Clean Your Opal Jewelry?
The unique beauty of opal is unparalleled. Considered to be a mineraloid, opal is unique in that it holds no crystal structure. This stone is distinct, however, in its play of colors that shift and change with the light - also known as opalescence. Reflecting light back in an array of rainbow hues, this stone seems to dance in flashes of mesmerizing colors. This is one stone you could truly stare at for hours, simply entranced by its cosmic appearance.
Found in a wide range of colors, opal can be black, white, blue, green, yellow, pink, or white. It is most commonly found in the white variety, but the most rare and valuable specimens are black opals. Although they are classified as black, this variety actually presents a stunning rainbow of hues. With the greatest deposits being found in Australia, opal is also mined in Mexico, the United States, Peru, and Brazil.
If you hope to keep your opal shining bright in its unmatched, ethereal beauty, proper care and maintenance is an absolute must. This stone is beautiful, and you surely want to wear it all the time, but all this wear results in the build-up of dust, debris, and dirt. This is totally normal, and to be expected with the wear of any crystal or gemstone, but it should be taken care of regularly, as to avoid any serious or permanent damage to the opal stone.
Any leftover dirt or dust that has not been cleaned from your opal jewelry can result in the stone appearing cloudy or milky. When this happens, the stone becomes more dull, and loses a bit of that distinct shimmer and opalescence. If this has happened to your stone, though, do not worry! It is a pretty easy fix to get your opal looking good as new. Cloudiness in an opal can be quickly helped by a proper clean.
Cloudiness or a milky appearance in gemstones is usually caused by the accumulation of soap, dirt, or other debris getting stuck on the surface and crevices of the stone. This build-up makes it more difficult for light to shine through, and thus results in a duller-looking opal stone. You can avoid this problem by following a simple cleaning routine.
Caring for Opal
Wondering how to keep your opal shining bright in its whimsical beauty? Regular care and maintenance is the key to keeping your stone looking good as new. Luckily, when it comes to opal, cleaning is a fairly simple and quick process. Fancy tools and expensive products are unnecessary for opal, making your job nice and easy!
Ranking at a 5.5 to 6.5 on the Mohs Scale, opal is a fairly fragile stone and precautions should be taken to keep it from being scratched or damaged. Opal makes a stunning addition to any jewelry design, but it should be treated with care as to keep its beauty intact.
As opal does have the potential to be scratched or cracked, we recommend not swimming, cleaning, bathing, or exercising while wearing opal jewelry. Start getting in the habit of taking off your jewelry before activities such as these, and placing it away in a soft and secure place.
While not in use or wear, we advise storing your opal jewelry in a designated jewelry box or in a soft pouch. This storage method ensures that you not only never lose your jewelry, but it also keeps your opal piece from being scratched by other harder stones.
The Step-by-Step Process for Cleaning Opal Stones
The frequency with which you wear your opal jewelry will determine how often you need to clean it. For instance, if you choose to wear it daily, you may want to clean your opal every couple of weeks. With frequent wear, you should also make an annual trip for your opal to be professionally cleaned. On the other hand, if you only wear your opal jewelry once in a while, you can clean it every couple of months.
A professional cleaning will restore your opal to full brightness and shimmer, but daily home cleaning is just as important to guarantee a lifetime of beauty for this stone. Listed below is an easy-to-follow cleaning routine for your opal or opal jewelry.
- Find a clean bowl and fill it with warm water.
- Next, add a couple drops of mild dish soap to the water, and place your opal stone in this warm soapy mixture.
- Leave the opal to soak for up to 30 minutes.
- Now it is time to gently clean the opal. Using a soft cloth, lightly scrub your stone. Be very careful with this step so as to not scratch the stone!
- Remove the stone from the soapy mixture, and rinse it with cool, clean water.
- Using a soft, microfiber towel, dry the opal stone.
- Store your crystal safely away in a jewelry box or a pouch until further use.
Products to Use & Products to Avoid
Curious which cleaning products are best for maintaining your opal stone? Read on!
Products to Use
Opal maintenance is luckily a simple process, and should be kept that way! The cleaning products you need for this stone are water and mild dish soap - two things you almost certainly already have on hand at home, making the cleaning process easy as can be.
There are certain non-toxic cleaners and products specifically made for opal crystals, but we recommend researching them thoroughly before using them on your beloved jewelry.
Use:
Products to Avoid
Any harsh chemicals should be avoided when cleaning opal, otherwise your stone is at risk of being damaged. Ammonia, bleach, chlorine, and alcohol should never be used on your opal stone jewelry.
Avoid:
- Ammonia
- Bleach
- Chlorine
- Alcohol
- Extreme Heat
How to Spiritually Cleanse Opal
Cleaning your crystals is important for far more than just visual purposes, and is incredibly important to maintaining their spiritual powers. As with all gemstones and crystals, opal should be regularly cleansed to keep it vibrating at the highest possible frequency. Exuding endless benefits, opal has the potential to fill your life with creativity, inspiration, joy, and positivity. However, without proper care, its powers can be quickly thrown off balance.
Opals are constantly absorbing the energy around them - it's their way of helping you. Whether that energy is positive or negative, either way, it gets stuck. Just like we, as humans, take showers to remove dirt and grime, so too a stone needs to be cleansed to remove the energy build-up. When an opal is able to release that pent-up energy, which is often toxic or negative, its powers are enhanced and more space is created to continue assisting you on your journey.
Worried that cleaning your opal will have a negative effect on its plethora of spiritual powers? Fear not! In fact, the opposite is true - a regular cleansing of your opal stone helps to enhance and enrich its abilities.
As mentioned previously, without proper cleaning, an opal can become cloudy or dull, and the same is true of its powers! If you want to keep your stone’s magical properties working at full potential, and to prevent them from ever dulling out, you must make the time to cleanse it.
The cleaning guide listed above is a wonderful way for maintaining the physical appearance of the stone, but a spiritual cleansing is a whole different process! Your stone constantly picks up dirt, dust, and debris, but it also picks up energy, and all of these things, both the physical and the spiritual, must be cleaned and released from the aquamarine stone.
4 Ways to Cleanse Opal of Negative Energies:
Your opal crystal is constantly at work, picking up information from the world around it. Oftentimes, that information comes in the form of energy, which becomes stuck in the crystal. Positive energy is wonderful for the opal, but an overwhelm of negativity or toxicity can harm its powers. For that reason, it is so important to regularly cleanse an opal, ensuring that its potential is optimized.
Here are 4 methods for energetically cleansing opals:
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Smoke
Using a smudge stick, you can cleanse your opal jewelry with the healing smoke. Choose cleansing herbs like palo santo, sage, or cedar, and allow their ancient power to energetically purify and recharge your opal crystal. As the smoke surrounds your stone, set an intention of purification and rejuvenation.
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Water
Natural water sources such as waterfalls, rivers, or lakes, are wonderful options to tune your stone back to the healing power of mother nature. Holding the stone in your hand, carefully rinse the stone in the clarifying waters. As you rinse, visualize the negative energy being pulled out from the opal and taken away with the current.
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Sound
Crystal singing bowls are tuned to high-vibrational frequencies, making them a great way to cleanse crystals and gemstones. If you have a crystal bowl at home, simply play it while keeping your opal nearby. Imagine the stone being circulated by the sounds, and liberated of any toxic energy it has collected over time.
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Light
Opal, with its angelic energy, is perfectly cleansed by the gentle light of the moon. Choose a New Moon or Full Moon for added power, and leave your opal stone in its loving light overnight. This method releases pent-up energy, and recharges your crystal’s powers. Add to the ritual by writing out a list of manifestations or intentions for this moon cycle, and ask for the assistance of your opal in achieving them.
Show Love & Care to Your Opal
Your opal jewelry has surely become a trusted and supportive companion in your life, so why not give some love right back to it? The perfect way to show your gratitude for all that this stone presents in your life is by regularly cleaning and cleansing it. Not only will your opal be restored to optimal appearance, shimmering in its extraordinary beauty, but its powers will also be restored and activated. The more regularly you clean and care for your stone, the more benefits and properties it will be able to offer to your life.
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