Moonstone Astral Opal™ Rough Slab

$722.00

Select an Option: A - 361 Grams

A - 361 Grams

B - 159.8 Grams

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SUSTAINABLY SOURCED

Lab-grown opal means no mining and less waste.

Description

Embrace celestial beauty with our Moonstone Astral Opal™ Rough Slab. Inspired by the soft glow of moonlight, this premium lab-created rough features a smoky gray base illuminated by brilliant rainbow fire. A mystical yet versatile choice for your collection of lapidary and jewelry making supplies, this synthetic opal rough delivers enchanting, multicolored flashes perfect for cutting, carving, or inlay projects.

Product Specifications

Material	Moonstone Astral Opal™ (Synthetic Polymer Impregnated)
Color Play	Primary: Gray \| Fire: Rainbow
Form	Rough Slab / Stone
Dimensions & Weight	See individual images for approximate dimensions and weight
Hardness	4 on the Mohs scale
Heat Resistance	Up to 250°F / 120°C
Composition	80% Silica / 20% Polymer

Why Choose Astral Opal™?

Celestial Fire & Color: Meticulously grown to display shimmering rainbow flashes against a soft gray body tone, reminiscent of moonlight through clouds.
Unmatched Stability: Guaranteed not to crack, craze, or yellow over time, offering superior durability compared to natural opal.
Consistent Quality: The year-long layering process ensures each piece has a unique yet consistently vibrant lunar-inspired pattern.

Creative Applications

Lapidary Cutting: Shape into cabochons, freeforms, or custom cuts for rings, pendants, and earrings.
Inlay Work: Add moonlit rainbow accents to wood, resin, or metal projects.
Wire Wrapping: The gray base with brilliant fire makes for mystical, celestial-inspired wire-wrapped jewelry.
Craft & Design: Ideal for decorative accents in knives, pens, instruments, or cosmic-themed art projects.

Please Note:

Our lab-created opals can withstand heat up to approximately 250°F; avoid exposing them to high heat.
Color and pattern may vary slightly from piece to piece.
To display the opal's finished color, photos are taken after using a liquid medium. The piece you receive will be a rough cut and may not appear polished or glossy.
We do our best to capture the true colors of each piece, but opal’s appearance can shift depending on lighting conditions.

Why Choose Lab-Grown Opal Over Natural Opal?

Lab-grown opal represents the perfect marriage of nature’s beauty and human ingenuity. It captures the mesmerizing fire of the world’s rarest opals while delivering significant advantages in durability, ethics, and vibrancy. Here’s why choosing a lab-grown opal for your jewelry is a brilliant decision.

Engineered for Everyday Life

The most significant advantage of lab-grown opal is its superior strength and stability. Natural opal is famously delicate, containing a high water content that makes it prone to cracking and "crazing" from impacts or temperature changes. This fragility is why it's often avoided for daily-wear pieces like engagement rings.

Our lab-grown opals solve this problem. By creating the opal in a controlled environment, a gem is produced that is far more resilient and durable. You can wear your opal jewelry with confidence every day, without the constant worry of damaging your precious stone.

Unmatched Vibrancy & Fire

While natural opals can be stunning, their quality and play-of-color can be inconsistent. The beauty of a lab-grown opal is the remarkable consistency and vibrancy of its fire. The process cultivates a flawless, intricate structure that results in a breathtaking and uniform play-of-color, a feature typically found only in the most expensive mined opals.

An Ethical & Sustainable Sparkle

Choosing a lab-grown opal is a choice you can feel good about. Our opals are grown above ground, completely bypassing the environmental disruption and ethical concerns associated with traditional mining. There is no destructive land use, no murky supply chains, just pure, beautiful opal created with a clear conscience.

Accessible Luxury

We offer these incredible gemstones at a more accessible price point than their mined counterparts of similar quality. Lab-grown opals make the breathtaking beauty of this unique gem available to more people and for more types of jewelry, allowing you to own a piece of rare beauty without the rare price tag.

With lab-grown opal, you no longer have to choose between breathtaking beauty and practical durability. You get the fire of a rare gemstone with the resilience for everyday life. A modern, ethical, and accessible treasure designed to last a lifetime.

How Our Lab-Grown Opal is Made

Our lab-grown opal, also known as synthetic opal or man-made opal, is a marvel of science, capturing the dazzling beauty of natural opal in a controlled environment. The result is a gemstone material with spectacular, consistent color and fire. While created in a lab, it shares the same fundamental composition as its natural counterpart: silica.

Lab-grown opal provides a brilliant and ethical alternative to mined opal. It offers not only affordability but also enhanced durability for creative projects. Unlike natural opal, which can be prone to cracking or crazing, our opal is stabilized with a polymer. This special impregnation process makes the material much stronger and easier to work with, perfect for jewelry, ring making, and other crafts. Please note, because of this polymer stabilization, the material cannot be exposed to the high heat of activities like glassblowing.

The Creation Process

Growing opal is a slow and precise art that mimics nature's own method, refined by science. The entire process, from start to finish, can take over a year to complete.

Step 1: Forming the Foundation

The journey begins with a solution of microscopic silica spheres suspended in water. This solution is the basic building block of opal. Nothing can be rushed here; the silica must be allowed to settle naturally.

Step 2: The Long Wait for Color

Over several months, these tiny silica spheres gradually sink and stack themselves into a highly ordered, tightly packed lattice. It is this perfectly uniform structure that gives opal its unique magic. As light passes through, the structure acts like a prism, diffracting the light and splitting it into a vibrant, dancing spectrum of color. This phenomenon is known as "play-of-color."

Step 3: Stabilization and Hardening

Once the silica structure is perfectly formed, the water is slowly and carefully removed. The material is then infused with a polymer to add strength and stability. This crucial step enhances the opal's durability, making it resistant to impact and cracking. The block is then allowed to fully harden into a solid mass.

Step 4: Revealing the Beauty

The rough block of lab-grown opal is now ready to be transformed. Just like a natural gemstone, it is skillfully cut, shaped, and polished to reveal the breathtaking patterns and colors locked inside. This process results in a stunning material ready for endless creative applications.

Shipping & Processing

Processing Times & Shipping Offers:

Processing Times: 1-3 Business Days *Unless otherwise specified
US orders over $50 are eligible for Free Ground Shipping via USPS (estimated 3-5 business days)

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