Styles of Opals

Styles of Opals

Opals are wonderful stones that tell stories through their shapes, colours and patterns. The variety of opals you can find is astounding! The type of opal used can completely change the final look of a jewellery design, that’s why it's amazing to know about different styles of opals so you can have a deeper appreciation for these artistic natural gemstones and the handmade jewellery you wear them in. These different styles of opals often evoke patterns or colours seen within nature, so when turned into bespoke jewellery, they become beautiful nature inspired rings, earrings and pendants.
 

Picture Stone

A picture stone is a natural gemstone that has patterns within it that resemble an image of something, such as a landscape, an animal, a flower, or a symbol. Opals are an example of a picture stone as there are many opals that have beautiful scenes or images within them. When these stones are used in jewellery, it automatically creates a meaningful story that draws people in, and people resonate with.


 

Ocean Opal

The natural swirls and ambiguous patterns in opals often resemble the ocean. Their range of blues vary from deep ocean navy’s to light teal’s, just like the various colous found within the ocean. Many natural opals encapsulate the essence of the ocean, some even have a twinkle in them that mimics the twinkle of sunlight on the water. When used in jewellery, these opals perfectly reflect coastal style and capture memories of sunny days by the ocean. We have a whole Ocean Inspired collection of jewellery that uses beautiful opals (plus sapphires and other gemstones too) with gorgeous blue ocean colours
 

Forest Opal

These opals reflect colours that are found all throughout natural forests. They feature a range of colours from vivid or deep greens to earthy browns. Looking at these green opals make you feel like you’re gazing into a blur of treetops. The gleam of the light hitting the opals resembles sunlight peeking through the leaves in a rain forest. Some of these opals include ironstone features which make the opal look like streams of water flowing through the forest floor.

Rainbow Opal

As the name suggests, these natural opals include many colours within the one gemstone. These colours vary from red to blue to green to purple and every colour in between! These opals are extremely eye-catching and make for stunning jewellery. Because there are so many colours captured in these opals, different angles or lighting enhance different colours within the stone. These opals appear to shift colours right before your eyes!

 
 

Want to learn more about different types of opals? Check out our article about the different technical terms for types of opals.

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