Labradorite Meaning and Healing Properties

Labradorite is a grey rock until it isn't. Tilt it two degrees and the whole face lights up blue, or gold, or a green that looks lit from behind. Customers who have never bought a crystal in their life will stand at the case turning a piece back and forth for five minutes. It is the single best stone in the shop for converting a sceptic.

Here is what causes the flash, how to judge a good piece, and what people use it for.

What Is Labradorite?

Labradorite is a plagioclase feldspar, which puts it in the most common mineral family in the Earth's crust. Its formula sits on a sliding scale between calcium and sodium end members, written as (Ca,Na)(Al,Si)₄O₈. Chemically it is unremarkable. Optically it is one of the strangest things in the mineral kingdom.

The flash has a name: labradorescence. It is not colour in the way that amethyst is purple. There is no pigment. When labradorite cooled slowly deep in the crust, it separated into microscopically thin alternating layers of two slightly different feldspar compositions. Those layers are a few hundred nanometres thick, which is the same order of magnitude as visible light. Light entering the stone reflects off the layer boundaries and interferes with itself, cancelling some wavelengths and reinforcing others. What comes back out is structural colour, the same mechanism that makes a soap bubble iridescent or a beetle shell metallic.

That is why the flash moves. You are not looking at the stone, you are looking at a specific angle through it.

It was first described in 1770 from Paul Island, off the coast of Labrador in Canada, which is where the name comes from. Today the commercial supply is overwhelmingly Malagasy. Madagascar produces enormous quantities of good blue and gold material. Finland produces spectrolite, a dark variety that flashes the full spectrum including red, which is the most valuable form on the market.

Labradorite Meaning

Labradorite is almost universally described as the stone of transformation, and for once the symbolism and the physical property line up neatly. The stone looks like one thing and then reveals another. You have to move to see it.

Inuit legend from the Labrador coast holds that the northern lights were once trapped in the rocks along the shore, and that a warrior struck them with his spear and freed most of them to the sky, leaving the rest behind in the stone. That story is retold constantly in the crystal world, and it is worth knowing that its documented history is thinner than the retelling suggests. It is a good story either way.

In modern practice it is paired with the third eye and throat chakras, and associated with intuition, self knowledge, and periods of change. People buy it at thresholds: a career move, the end of a relationship, a return to something they stopped doing.

What People Use Labradorite For

In meditation

Held at the brow or placed on the third eye, usually for work around intuition or decision making. Spheres and palm stones are the common shapes because they sit comfortably.

As a daily carry

Tumbled pieces and palm stones get carried during stretches of uncertainty. The practical reason it works as a carry is the flash: it rewards being taken out and looked at, which means people actually use it rather than leaving it in a drawer.

In the home

Freeforms and towers near a window, so the flash catches as you move past. Placement is almost always driven by light rather than by any rule.

In creative work

Writers, artists and musicians make up a noticeable slice of our labradorite buyers. The stated reason is usually something about getting out of your own way.

Chakra: Third eye and throat

Zodiac: Traditionally associated with Leo, Scorpio and Sagittarius

Element: Water and air

Common pairings: Moonstone and amethyst for intuition work, black tourmaline and hematite for grounding alongside it, clear quartz as a general amplifier

Affirmation: I am allowed to change.

How to Judge Good Labradorite

Outright fake labradorite is rare, because the flash is genuinely hard to counterfeit convincingly. What varies enormously is quality, and most of what is sold is mediocre. These are the things to look at.

• Coverage. How much of the face flashes at once? Good material lights up across the whole surface. Poor material flashes in patches or in a single narrow band, and the cutter has usually oriented it badly.
• Angle range. Turn it slowly. The best pieces hold the flash through a wide arc. Weak pieces show colour at exactly one angle and look grey everywhere else.
• Colour. Blue is the baseline and the most common. Gold, green and peach are more interesting. Red and purple are rare and command a real premium. Full spectrum material from Finland is sold as spectrolite.
• Depth. The flash should look like it is coming from inside the stone, not sitting on the surface. Surface shine is polish, not labradorescence.
• Fractures. Feldspar has two good cleavage directions at close to 90 degrees, so labradorite splits readily. Look for internal cracks catching the light as white lines rather than colour.
• Beware coated stones. Some cheap tumbles and beads are quartz or glass with an iridescent vapour coating. The giveaway is that the colour is oily and rainbow-like rather than a clean single flash, it covers the whole piece evenly including the back, and it chips to clear or white underneath.

How to Cleanse and Care for Labradorite

Labradorite is 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale, which means it is softer than quartz and softer than the dust and grit on most surfaces. It scratches. Keep it away from harder stones in a bag or a bowl.

Those two cleavage planes matter more than the hardness. A drop onto a hard floor will often split a piece cleanly rather than chip it. Spheres and thin slices are the most vulnerable.

Water is fine briefly. Do not soak it, and do not run it under hot water, because thermal shock is a real risk with cleaved material. Avoid prolonged direct sun, not because it fades, it does not, but because repeated heating and cooling works at existing cracks.

Smoke, sound, moonlight and selenite plates are all common cleansing choices and none of them pose any risk to the stone.

Labradorite at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my labradorite only flash from one side?

Because the internal layers that create the flash all lie in one orientation. If the cutter did not line the polished face up with those layers, you get colour on one face and grey on the others. It is a cutting decision, not a defect in the stone, but it does affect value.

What is the difference between labradorite and spectrolite?

Spectrolite is a trade name for a dark labradorite from Finland that shows the full colour range including red and violet. It is the same mineral, just unusually good material from one place.

Is moonstone the same as labradorite?

They are relatives, both feldspars, but not the same. Moonstone is usually orthoclase or an orthoclase and albite mix and shows adularescence, a soft floating blue or white glow. Labradorite shows sharp metallic flashes of several colours. Rainbow moonstone sits confusingly between the two and is technically a white labradorite.

Can labradorite go in water?

Briefly and in cool water, yes. Avoid soaking, hot water and salt water. The risk is not dissolution, it is water working into cleavage cracks.

Will labradorite fade in sunlight?

No. The colour is structural rather than pigment based, so there is nothing to bleach. The only sun related risk is thermal stress on fractured pieces.

Why is some labradorite so much more expensive?

Full face coverage, a wide viewing angle, rare colours and large clean sizes all push price up sharply. A hand sized freeform with edge to edge purple flash is a different product from a grey tumble with a blue streak, even though both are labradorite.

Shop Our Labradorite

Flash is impossible to judge from a stock photo, so we shoot every piece in hand under the same light. What you see is the stone you get. Have a look at our labradorite.

References

• Mindat.org, Labradorite mineral data
• International Gem Society, Labradorite Value, Price and Jewelry Information
• Handbook of Mineralogy, Mineralogical Society of America