WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN SHOPPING AT THE OPAL DEALER
Find your inner peace with the serene beauty of our Sleepy Lavender Opal Tennis Necklace. This elegant 24-inch necklace is meticulously crafted from solid 925 sterling silver and set with a continuous line of our calming Sleepy Lavender opals. Each 5mm round cabochon is inspired by a tranquil lavender field, featuring a deep purple and indigo base that shifts with delicate flashes of blue fire. A soothing and beautiful statement piece, this tennis necklace secures with a classic box clasp, bringing a touch of graceful beauty and calm to any occasion.
Product Specifications
| Opal Type | Lab-Grown Sleepy Lavender Opal |
|---|---|
| Opal Size | 5mm Round Cabochons |
| Metal | 925 Sterling Silver |
| Necklace Style | Tennis Necklace |
| Length | 24 inches |
| Clasp | Open Box Clasp |
| Color Play | Primary: Purple & Indigo | Fire: Blue |
Why You'll Love This Necklace
- Tranquil Color: Each of the lab-grown Sleepy Lavender opals is hand-selected to create a seamless flow of deep purple and indigo with calming flashes of blue fire.
- Timeless Tennis Style: The classic tennis necklace design offers an uninterrupted line of brilliance, creating a look of sophisticated, effortless elegance.
- Quality Craftsmanship: Expertly crafted from durable, hypoallergenic 925 sterling silver, this necklace is designed for a comfortable fit and lasting beauty.
- Secure & Seamless: Features a sturdy and easy-to-use open box clasp that blends seamlessly into the design, ensuring your treasure stays safely in place.
Styling & Gifting
- Serene Elegance: Perfect for adding a touch of tranquil color to your wardrobe. Its calming hues are ideal for both professional settings and relaxing evenings out.
- The Perfect Gift: An ideal gift for anyone who appreciates graceful beauty and moments of calm. A thoughtful present for birthdays, anniversaries, or as a special self-care treat.
- Complete the Look: Pairs beautifully with our Sleepy Lavender earrings and bracelets for a coordinated, stunning ensemble.
Please Note: Our lab-created opals are unique and color may vary slightly from stone to stone, ensuring your necklace is a one-of-a-kind piece.
Sterling silver is cherished for its brilliant shine and versatility, making it a staple in any jewelry collection. However, its one drawback is a natural tendency to tarnish. Fortunately, with the proper care, you can easily keep your pieces looking as bright and beautiful as the day you got them. In this comprehensive guide, we'll cover everything from daily wear and proper storage to the best methods for cleaning sterling silver, ensuring your treasured accessories remain timeless.
What Causes Sterling Silver to Tarnish?
Before diving into care, it helps to understand why silver tarnishes. Tarnish is not rust or a defect; it's a natural chemical reaction. When the copper alloy in sterling silver is exposed to sulfur compounds in the air (from humidity, certain foods, or pollution), a dark layer of silver sulfide forms. The good news is that this is only a surface-level reaction and can be easily managed and removed.
Daily Wear: How to Keep Silver from Tarnishing
The best way to care for your silver is to prevent tarnish before it starts. How you wear your jewelry makes a huge difference.
Put Jewelry On Last
Make your silver jewelry the final touch to your outfit. Cosmetics, hairspray, lotions, and perfumes can accelerate tarnishing. Letting these products dry before putting on your jewelry minimizes exposure.
Avoid Contact with Harsh Chemicals
Remove your sterling silver before swimming in chlorinated water, using household cleaners, or performing tasks that involve harsh chemicals. These substances can cause immediate and severe discoloration.
Take it Off Before Bed
While you sleep, you can toss and turn, potentially bending or scratching your jewelry. It's also a good practice to remove pieces before showering or exercising to avoid contact with moisture and sweat.
Proper Storage: The Key to Preventing Tarnish
When you're not wearing your jewelry, storing it correctly is your number one defense against tarnish and scratches.
- Keep it in a Cool, Dry Place: Moisture is tarnish's best friend. Avoid leaving your jewelry in a bathroom or other humid environments.
- Store Pieces Separately: To prevent scratching, store each piece of silver in its own soft pouch or in a fabric-lined jewelry box with separate compartments.
- Use Anti-Tarnish Solutions: For added protection, you can place small anti-tarnish strips or silica gel packets inside your storage container to absorb moisture and sulfur compounds.
How to Clean Sterling Silver at Home
Even with perfect care, your silver will eventually need a polish. Regular, gentle cleaning is the key to maintaining its luster.
For Light Polishing
For minor dullness or fingerprints, simply use a soft, lint-free polishing cloth (like one used for eyeglasses or camera lenses). Gently rub the surface in long, straight strokes to bring back the shine. Avoid using paper towels or tissues, as their fibers can scratch the silver.
For a Deeper Clean (Mild Tarnish)
If your jewelry needs more attention, a simple soap and water solution is highly effective and safe.
- Mix a few drops of mild, phosphate-free dish soap into a bowl of warm water.
- Dip a soft cloth into the solution and gently rub the jewelry to lift the tarnish.
- Rinse the jewelry thoroughly under clean, cool water.
- Pat the pieces completely dry with a clean, soft cloth. Ensuring they are fully dry is crucial before storing.
Important: Avoid using abrasive cleaners, toothpaste, or baking soda pastes on sterling silver, as these can easily scratch the metal's surface.
Special Care for Silver Jewelry with Gemstones
When your sterling silver jewelry features gemstones, especially delicate ones like opal or pearl, extra caution is needed. While the silver can handle a soap and water bath, many gemstones cannot.
- Avoid Soaking: Never submerge jewelry with porous stones like opals, pearls, or turquoise in water. This can damage the stone and loosen the setting's adhesive.
- Use a Targeted Approach: To clean the silver, dip a cotton swab or a soft cloth in a mild soap solution and carefully clean the metal, avoiding the gemstone.
- Clean Gemstones Gently: To clean the stone itself, simply wipe it with a soft, damp cloth. For tougher grime around a durable stone (like a diamond or sapphire), you can use a very soft, damp toothbrush to gently scrub around the setting.
When to Seek Professional Cleaning
While home care is effective for regular maintenance, we recommend a professional cleaning and inspection once a year. A trusted jeweler can check for loose settings, test clasp integrity, and use professional-grade tools to give your pieces a brand-new shine, ensuring their longevity.
A Final Word on Jewelry Care
By following these practices for wearing, storing, and cleaning your 925 sterling silver, you can easily preserve its timeless beauty for years to come. A little consistent care is all it takes to keep your collection shining bright.
Disclaimer: These tips are based on standard jewelry care practices. Individual pieces may have unique requirements. Please consider the specific needs of your jewelry, as you are ultimately responsible for its care.
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.
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.
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)