The twenty stones, and how to choose one
Choose by what the piece will sit next to, not by what looks best on a screen. Twenty stones sounds like a hard choice until you answer three questions: what you already wear, how dark you want it, and whether you want a piece that reads as one colour or many.
The three questions
What do you already wear? Silver and white metals sit well with amazonite, blue sodalite, white jade, lapis lazuli and obsidian. Gold and warm metals suit tiger eye, mahogany jasper, red agate, yellow aventurine and sesame jasper.
How dark do you want it? Obsidian, lava rock and black flash are the darkest. Pink jade, white jade and grass turquoise are the lightest. Everything else sits between.
One colour or many? Serpentine jade, amazonite and red agate read as a single colour across the strand. Indian agate, purple-blue jasper and sesame jasper change bead to bead, so no two strands look the same.
The pale stones
Amazonite is a soft blue-green that photographs cooler than it looks in the hand. White jade is close to cream rather than white. Pink jade is a quiet dusty pink, not a bright one. Grass turquoise is a light blue-green with fine darker veining.
These are the stones that disappear against a pale sleeve and show best against something dark.
The dark stones
Obsidian is a flat, deep black with a glassy surface. Lava rock is matte, porous and much lighter in the hand than it looks. Black flash carries a grey shimmer through the black. Lapis lazuli is a strong blue with gold flecks.
Lava rock is the one people underestimate. It is the stone to choose if you want something that looks substantial and weighs almost nothing.
The warm stones
Tiger eye has a band of light that moves when the wrist turns. Mahogany jasper is a deep red-brown with black through it. Red agate is a clear warm red. Yellow aventurine is a soft, slightly cloudy yellow. Sesame jasper is a speckled grey-brown that works like a neutral.
These are the stones that sit happily with gold accents and gold rounds.
The ones that change bead to bead
Indian agate runs through moss green, rust and near-black in a single strand. Purple-blue jasper mixes violet against turquoise. Blue agalmatolite moves between pale blue and cream. Rhodochrosite is banded pink and white. Violet quartz carries purple through a clear ground.
If you want a piece nobody else has, these are the five to look at. They are also the hardest to photograph honestly, which is why the builder draws your strand from the real bead photographs rather than a flat colour.
Seeing it before you buy
Every made-to-order piece draws itself on the product page as you choose. Pick the stone, the spacer, the pattern and the pendant, and the drawing redraws from the actual bead photograph each time.
It is a representation rather than a photograph of your finished piece. Natural stone varies, and that variation is the point of buying natural stone.
Questions people ask
Do the stones mean anything?
People attach meanings to stones and we are not going to tell you what to believe. We sell them as stone, chosen for how they look and how they wear.
Will my bracelet look exactly like the picture?
No, and that is deliberate. Every strand is picked bead by bead from natural stone, so colour and pattern move from one piece to the next.
Which stone is hardest wearing?
Obsidian, red agate and tiger eye take knocks best. Lava rock is porous and will take up oils and scent over time, which some people want and some do not.
Written at the bench in Hagerstown, Maryland. Questions go to [email protected].