Selenite Crystal Bowl

Selenite is a variety of gypsum - hydrated calcium sulfate, CaSO₄·2H₂O - and one of the softest minerals worked, Mohs 2, soft enough to mark with a fingernail. The polished pieces are usually satin spar, the fibrous gypsum whose parallel fibres give a moving, silky sheen.

That sheen is chatoyancy - light running along the fine fibres, a band of soft white light that travels as the stone or the light moves, like the sheen on satin or on still water. The body is translucent white to near-clear, so light passes into it and it glows.

Two things follow from gypsum’s softness and its water content: selenite scratches very easily, and it dissolves in water. Every selenite piece asks the most careful, driest handling - the care given for each form below is not optional.

Asked often

Why is it called selenite?
From the Greek selene, the moon, for the soft moonlike sheen that runs across the polished stone. The name is old, and the likeness to moonlight is the reason for it.

Why is it so soft?
Selenite is gypsum, Mohs 2 - one of the softest minerals worked, soft enough to scratch with a fingernail. That softness is its nature, and the reason every piece is handled gently and kept from harder things.

Can it get wet?
No - keep it dry. Gypsum dissolves in water, so damp will cloud, pit, or break down the surface. Selenite is dusted with a dry cloth only, never washed.

Can I put water or liquid in the bowl?
No - never. Selenite is gypsum and dissolves in water, so the bowl is for dry things only: rings, small stones, keepsakes. Dust it with a dry cloth; do not wash it.

1. Rest it on a shelf, desk, or dressing table.
2. Hold dry stones, rings, or small keepsakes in it - not water.
3. Dust with a dry, soft cloth only; never wash it.
4. Very soft and water-soluble - keep it and its contents dry; do not use it for liquids.

Selenite is the softest, most water-sensitive material in the house. A selenite bowl is for dry things only - water will cloud and break down the surface.

Dry cloth only, never washed, and never filled with water or anything damp - gypsum dissolves. Keep dry objects in it; spare the soft surface gritty or hard stones that could scratch it.

• Stone: Selenite · satin-spar gypsum
• Composition: CaSO₄·2H₂O · hydrated calcium sulfate
• Hardness: Mohs 2 (very soft)
• Character: Translucent white · carved bowl · satin sheen
• Form: Carved bowl · cut and polished
• Use: Dry items only · not for liquids
• Origin: Morocco
• Care: Dry cloth only · keep from all water

The great selenite crystals are among the largest single crystals on Earth - the Cave of Crystals at Naica in Mexico holds gypsum beams many metres long, grown over hundreds of thousands of years in mineral-rich water. The same mineral, ground and fired, is the gypsum of plaster, and the alabaster carved since antiquity.

For its moonlike sheen selenite was named for the moon by the Greeks and read as a stone of light and calm across cultures - named here as what people believed. The sheen is fibre and light; what it quiets is the keeper’s.