Soft enough to scratch with a fingernail, and clear enough to read through.
The aesthetic
Selenite is a clear, colourless variety of gypsum that forms in glassy sheets and long satin fibres, and it is soft enough to mark with a fingernail. It splits into flexible transparent leaves that were once used as window glass, which is where the word for a specimen sheet, selenite plate, comes from. It also dissolves slowly in water, so it is never cleaned that way.
The dynamic
Selenite is associated with clearing and with a still, uncluttered kind of calm, and is the stone most often used to keep other stones rather than for itself.
Some variations
- satin spar
- desert rose
- gypsum flower
- selenite towers
- fishtail selenite