CULTURED OPAL LONG RECTANGLE PENDANT

Long rectangle cultured opal is set in an elegant silver setting with braided silver border and bail.


18" silver plated chain included

Cultured opal is a lab-grown opal that was developed through a process to produce silica nano and micro spheres in commercial quantities with a polydispersity of .005 or better. Nature’s ability to produce silica with the uniformity necessary to create opal is miraculous. It is only slightly less remarkable that man can achieve a very similar outcome in a laboratory.
Until now, the only lab created opal available had very consistent domains and color. Most of this consistency in color is maintained by using dyes.  While many colors are available in other synthetic opal because the color is produced by dye, each piece of opal only contains one color and not much “play of color” if any.  In other words, the color doesn’t change or move with different angles of light.  Cultured Opal does not use dye; all color is the result of Bragg diffraction of visible light as occurs in natural opal.  Furthermore, because the processes mimic nature, most pieces of opal have a diversity of color and depending on the angle of the light the opal will change color.
The beauty of cultured Opal is that while they are able to settle large batches of opal that will all have a similar look, each piece of opal is still quite unique.  This enables me to create many pieces of jewelry that have a similar look yet each piece will be unique.  It is the unique look and the brilliant play of color that sets cultured Opal apart from any other lab grown opal manufacturer.