More about marcasite

Marcasite has been used in the jewelry world since the ancient Greek time. There are also some evidences of marcasite in the burial grounds of the Inca people in Latin America. The marcasite has been believed to have a power to preserve the beauty of women, no wonder that Cleopatra was also reported to had marcasite as her jewelry collections.

marcasite

Today, marcasite is popular in used (again) after it was popular in the 18th and 19th century in the Great Britain. In the Queen Victoria era, the queen herself had worn marcasite jewelry as a substitute for her diamonds, and lead many people interested in this stone type. For today, people do interested in its beauty and stunning look that come with the great design and an affordable price. If you are in the group of people who want to go with this marcasite jewelry, you can just go out or look from the online shop and then, place one marcasite jewelry piece for yourself.

The marcasite is normally cut into oval or triangle shape and then set the piece with silver jewelry for the great jewelry look. But the tiny marcasite crystals are most commonly cut in a rose shape. Rose cut is a simple cut for gemstone which has a flatted base, unfaceted and the top is fashioned into one or two rows of triangular facets forrosebud look.

The setting of the stone is the point to consider for your jewelry cleaning. If the stone is set in either prong set, bead set or bezel set, the stone will be tightly hold with the jewelry body. Prong setting is to help the stone by a tiny prong, bead setting is using small metal bead to pushed up for stone securing and bezel setting  is a collar of metal setting around the stone to hold in the right place. However, for the cheaper marcasite jewelry, the stone might be attached to the jewelry body by glue only. Therefore, you need to look for the way that marcasite was placed in the setting and then be careful everytime you need to clean your jewelry pieces.

You can just clean your marcasite with soft cotton clothes for the dry or slightly dirt on its piece. For the deep cleaning, go with the mild soap in warm water. After cleaning, gently wiped dry with a soft and non-tarnish cloths before place the piece back in its box. Always keep the jewelry in a clean and dry place. With extra care, you marcasite jewelry will stay with you as long as you want.

Handcrafted necklaces – know your face shape first

Handcrafted necklaces

The best thing about your handcrafted think is you can get the right one for yourself. This is also applied for your handcrafted jewelry like necklaces or earrings which you can go with the design that match to your face shape. The first thing you need to know before start your handcrafted jewelry is to learn about your face shape, then, check for your neckline. Next, you can choose the design that best fit to your face and neckline and go with the compliment pair of earrings or bracelet at the time.

What is your facial shape? People face shape can be divided into 4 types;

1. Round face:  people for this face type have a circular face shape with fuller cheeks. The best necklace design would be a longer necklace, to create a slimmer look for the wearer. The angular material shape like beads would be perfect for this face shape type people.

2. Square face: people with the square face shape need to add curves to your face, for the better look. Therefore, look for the piece that put curve on your face.

3. Heart face: people with this face style have a wider forehead with narrow chin. Therefore, you need to put the an item that give illusion to wider your jaw lin. Necklace style for this face shape people would compose of strong horizontal lines or chunky beads to balance your forehead with the necklace.

4. Oval face: people with this face shape are so lucky, you can wear every necklace styles. Therefore, go with the necklace that compliment with your outfit and character.

With your face shape known, next thing you should do for your own handcrafted necklaces is about the neckline. You can go with different neckline depend on the materials and your design. There are many designs, for example.

Round neckline: for a simple jewelry piece. This line is best for a simple necklace without any dangles.

V-neckline: for the focus on pendants and dangles. If you have one centre piece of pendants or dangle, this is the style you should go for.

Turtleneck: beware to choose the bold materials with the right size, color and shape to create this necklace style as this style can give a crowded look to your collar in the easy way.

With any design you want to go for, check for the pattern and materials use for the best handcrafted necklaces. You will enjoy the way to create the right thing for yourself.

Sterling or silver-plated jewelry, any piece you like

silver plated

Whether the silver jewelry you are looking at is sterling silver or silver plated jewelry, you need to consider the options below before make you decision to go with the piece or not. For the term sterling silver or silver plated, they are the description foramount of silver that apply on the piece. Sterling silver is normally 92.5% silver mixed with other metal, copper in general. For silver plated jewelry, it referred to other metal jewelry plated with silver on the surface instead.

The first thing you need for any type of jewelry is the style. Your jewelry style is depended on your personality and lifestyle as you need to choose the style that you can match with your everyday outfit. However, if you want to wear the piece in special occasions, you might need to look for special design apart from your daily use jewelry. There are always special designs for each special event, you just need to design which one you should go for that particular occasion.

Then, think about the mix and match theme. Don’t be afraid with the mix and match things. You can create your own style with this mix and match things. This option can be the hard thing to begin but when you get use to the style, you can start to put everything together and see how great of the style from each mix and match on the pieces can be produced.

Keep checking for the jewelry condition. The damage can occur in the piece at anytime without your notice. Therefore, if you can see a mark of damage on your jewelry pieces, you can start to stop or prevent these marks. For silver jewelry, either sterling silver or silver plated jewelry, you can always find a mark of tarnish on each piece. You can easily take away this tarnish with tarnish remover reagent. Just keep looking at each piece, regular check is recommended for any jewelry pieces and types.

If the piece need to repair as the damage is largely than you can fix by yourself, you should go to the silversmith only. Never try to fix the piece by yourself as you might damage the piece than you can imagine. Check for the shop policy whether they have offered for free repair or discount for repairing with the shop or not. More about purchase silver-plated.

How to check for the simulated pearls?

The simulated pearls were presented for more than thousand years ago. It was recorded in the book of Wang Chhung for the method of creations; how heating, proper timing, andright mix of chemical could combine to generate simulated pearls. At the time for this record, the natural pearls were rarely found and came withhigh price. Therefore, attempt for pearl generation has been recorded since the oldest time.

simulated pearlsThe experiments for simulated pearls were continued throughout the year to mimic the beauty of natural pearl to simulated one.  In the 16th century, the venetians found the way to create a beautiful iridescent glass instead of pearls. Later one, a man named Jacquin found the way to create the simulated pearl using essence d’orient (solution extracted from fish scales) and coated on glass beads for the items that look similar to pearls. However, to create simulated pearls by this way, thousand of fish scales will be needed. Therefore, the method was not popular in used. For today, there are many way to create simulated pearls; either from plastic beads, glass covered with essence d’orient or pearl film for the high quality simulated pearls.

There are actually many types for simulated pearls waiting for you in the market. You will see the labeled like fake, faux, simulated, artificial, imitation or man-made pearls available in the market. There is nothing wrong with these material types, but you need to check whether the materials in your hand are real or not. This is to inform yourself about the pearls that you have for yourself.

The best way to test whether the pearl is natural pearls or simulated pearls is using your teeth. You can perform the test by run a pearl over your teeth, just for a lightly feeling with the touch. Natural pearls should have a gritty feel whole simulated pearls will give a relatively smooth feeling. However, this method is really hard to differentiate between cultured pearls from man-made type, which might give a wrong impression whenever you have applied this method on.

The next method is using sunlight, natural pearls have more depth and color variation when you hole them to the sun. Simulated pearls will show little shinny compare with the real thing. You can inspect the sample under magnification, to see the ridges, grooves or other surface imperfection from naturally made pearls, but not from the simulated pearls.

There are also other ways to test the natural pearls from simulated pearls. With the look, they are quite similar and you can get all attention using simulated pearls in the similar way as natural pearls. They are the same thing, to complete your look on special occasions. But you need to check about its quality to make sure that you have paid for simulated pearls for the reasonable price.