I’ve had such a headache with labradorite over the past year or so. Trying to find nice quality material, with good labradorescence, I’ve seen an awful lot of murky coloured material with little or no colour play, and I’ve sent back lots of the stuff as being no good. After all, labradorite without its famed stunning optical effects is just a dull grey stone. Now, it’s not that difficult to find beautiful individual examples of it, but sourcing a reliable supply that can produce calibrated cabochons in quantity is a different matter. Now I can say, I think I’ve found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; beautiful translucent material with superb flash. This really is stunning material, with minimal cracks.

I always get the same message from customers when they buy labradorite; good flash and no cracks, please. This is quite hard, because it is the layered nature of labradorite, leading to the interference of light at its internal structures, that produces its famous schiller, and quite often these cracks and fractures break through to the polished surface of the stone. So, whilst I will say that this is amongst the cleanest material I have seen, it is not completely free from cracks. But you can see for yourself; it is very beautiful, and when I opened my first packet of samples, I breathed a sigh of pure bliss!!

Currently I have 4mm, 6mm and 12mm cabochons priced at $0.95, $2.25 and $18 per stone, and you can find them here. There is a choice of colours; you can opt for blue/aqua flash or green/gold flash. In time I will be replacing all of my labradorite stock with this wonderful material; look out in the next few weeks for 4mm and 6mm rose cuts.