The Ultimate Jewelry Style Tips Worth Knowing

Jewellery is the staple of every woman’s wardrobe. It’s what defines your style. Your dress shapes your personality. So, don’t just dress for the sake of it. Instead, you always dress to impress. Let your beauty sparkle. Accessorize like a pro. Blend different shapes, colours, and textures. But how do you go about this? Well, here’s how to coordinate jewellery like a pro! Create Layers Experiment with different types of colours and textures. Create appealing layers with your bangles, rings, and necklaces. When layering necklaces, for instance, you may want to consider combining different lengths. This will go a long way in making you look stylish and sophisticated. Rings and bracelets can be mixed and matched in all sorts of attractive combinations. You can even try wearing multiple earring styles. It’s super easy. All you need is to collect jewellery pieces of different sizes, textures, and designs. Then, try them on in various combinations to see what looks better. Get Some Sparkly Earrings When it comes to beauty, earrings are extremely useful. They play a significant role in emphasizing your looks. So, be sure to choose unique earrings that perfectly frame your face. Plus, they should complement your hair and skin tone. Combine Different Metals Don’t be afraid to mix different colours. You don’t necessarily have to stick with gold or sterling silver jewellery. You can as well try pendants that contrast with the colour of your chain. That would bring out a perfect look. When paired with metal colours and layered necklaces or bangles, pendant earrings can be outstandingly beautiful. Determine the Focal Point Where’s the focal point? Is it your eyes, your face, or your neck? Would you like people’s attention to be drawn to those areas? Well, go ahead and choose the best jewellery. Showcase your beauty in style. If you’re wearing sparkly earrings, for instance, then opt for subtle, necklaces and rings. Or you can even do away with the necklace. All items shouldn’t be bold. Instead, you should know how to create a balance between them. Expand Your Wardrobe Do you have some free time? Well, you may want to spend this time trying different outfits with various pieces of jewellery. Try out as many combinations as you can. This can help you determine what works best. Don’t just focus on clothes and jewellery. You can as well add in other accessories like watches, scarves, as well as, bags. You’ll actually be astonished at what you can come up with. If you don’t have many pieces of jewellery, consider purchasing a few extra pieces. Look for items that’ll extend and add interest to your wardrobe. Invest in sparkly things that’ll help you make a statement. Break the Rules Fashion trends greatly affect what people wear. However, it isn’t a good idea to keep the following fashion at the expense of your personal preference. You don’t have to become a fashion slave for you to stay stylish. If you do this, you might end up losing yourself. Plus, it can be extremely expensive. Thus, it’s always important to try evolving your own style. Come up with something that suits your personality and makes you feel confident. Of course, that might not look fashionable right now but if you own it then you’ll definitely be fine. Invest in jewellery that perfectly matches your colouring frame and overall sense of style. When trying to accessorize, be sure to take all these aspects into consideration. That’s the only way through which you can achieve your desires. Remember, your personality is a crucial part of your well-being. So, don’t compromise on it when choosing jewellery items to wear. Make sure that what you are wearing truly showcases your personality. Try Wearing Your Rings with Panache Stacking rings can be incredibly stylish. It can add so much versatility to your wardrobe. Plus, mix and matching them can significantly improve your looks. For a more minimalist look, you can consider stacking only two simple rings. Depending on your preference, you can either match rings or mix different colours and textures. When wearing multiple rings, avoid putting on more than one ring on each hand. Simply wear an odd number of rings on each hand and you’ll be good to go. Remember, you can always break the rules. When it comes to beauty, everyone has their own style. And there’s an endless list of jewellery items you may want to accessorize with. Choose Your Necklace Wisely Make sure that your necklace or pendant is visible. Unless it’s a sentimental piece, you’ll want people to see your beautiful jewellery. So, be sure to match the necklace to your neckline. This will go a long way in enhancing your outfit. If you’re wearing a V-necked outfit, for instance, then a pendant sitting above your cleavage can work wonders. For a higher necked outfit, a long necklace would be incredibly beautiful. A rounded necklace is great with other rounded necklines. At times, it’s good to go without a necklace. If you’re wearing a beautiful pair of earrings, for instance, then you shouldn’t necessarily put on a necklace. Depending on your outfit, you can either wear a necklace or not. If you’re wearing a high-necked outfit, don’t put on a necklace. Don’t Always Wear Sentimental Jewelry You don’t have to wear sentimental items regularly. It isn’t a must for you to wear your engagement ring every day. But if you must wear it daily, then consider layering it with other jewellery pieces. This will go a long way in adding interest and diversity to your style. For instance, you may want to get yourself a longer or an adjustable chain that hangs beneath your clothing if it doesn’t match the colour of your outfit. You don’t always have to stick with the rules. Dressing up is a personal matter. So, you can always do it the way you want. Your style is your personal decision. It defines who you truly are. Settle for whatever fits you. Try Different Shades In the past, it was considered awkward to mix different metal colours. But with the current developments, that’s no longer the case. There’s no need to restrict yourself to sterling silver and gold jewellery. Feel free to try out pendants featuring a different chain colour, or layered necklaces in different metals to create an elegant impression. When done right, this fashion trend can be highly impressive. So, why limit yourself to specific options when you can easily combine different metals? Let jewelers help you combine different metals today! Match It Up With Your Clothing Before you start dressing, think about your clothing. Once you’ve decided on the type of jewellery you’d like to wear, go ahead and choose matching clothing. Make sure that your clothes work perfectly with the jewellery, as well as other accessories. Doing this will ensure that you end up with the right combination that’ll make you look fashionable Choose the Right Sizes With the right jewellery, dull outfits can be transformed into something special. If you’re wearing a simple outfit, consider wearing timeless jewellery pieces. This will ensure that your simple outfit is brought to life. However, if you’re wearing bold clothing, it’s often better to go with smaller jewellery pieces. The secret is to accessorize with both small and larger pieces of jewellery. Plus, you should always consider combining different shades, textures, and designs. This will go a long way in enhancing your beauty and making you look trendy. Dress For The Occasion Do you regularly type on the keyboard? If so, you should avoid wearing dangling wrist jewellery. And if you’re dressing for work, you should avoid wearing bangles and hanging bracelets. Before putting on your jewellery, you should carefully consider where you’re going. Think about what you’ll be doing, as well as, how your jewellery comes off to onlookers. There’s nothing disappointing like wearing the wrong type of jewellery for a given occasion. Where do you want people’s attention to be drawn? Are you dressing up for a special event? Well, if you’re wearing something that’s intended to catch the eye, then it’s better to make the focal point on your neck, ears, or eyes. If you’re wearing a pricey necklace, for instance, then opt for more subtle rings, as well as earrings. This will help you strike a perfect balance between the contrasting shades. And that’s exactly what you’re dying to achieve, right? You want to step out in style and let the world know that you’re the beauty queen. Mix Busy Patterns With Simple Jewelry When paired with ornate jewellery, busy patterns can be highly impressive. Instead of showy accessories, consider investing in solid bracelets, watches, as well as earrings. Plus, you should also take into consideration the material of your outfit. If your wardrobe features heavily stitched fabric, ornate jewellery can be an excellent choice for you. Besides, wearing ornate jewellery will augment your boldness and enhance your overall appearance. Highlight Your Face With Statement Rings If you want to highlight your face, consider wearing a pair of statement earrings. Look for the flashy ones that enhance your facial appearance. When making your selection, be sure to consider the shape of your face and the colour of your eyes. If you have a heart-shaped face, for instance, you may want to settle for drop earrings. And if your face is oval-shaped, you should consider studs or triangular earrings. It all starts with understanding the shape of your face. From there, choosing the perfect jewellery will be a walkover. Be Mindful Of Your Skin Tone Jewellery shouldn’t just match your outfit. If you want to stay trendy, consider highlighting your skin with jewellery. For you to win at accessorizing, you should know how to enhance the look of your skin. Silver is a beautiful metal that illuminates most natural tones. On the other hand, gold works well with darker skin tones. Red, blue, and white gold gems blend well with cooler skin tones. For warmer skin tones, you can choose yellow, green, or orange gemstones. Strike A Balance Rubies and canary diamonds make a statement by themselves. Both of these colours are bold and fiery. They look great when paired with black and white. However, they can as well pair nicely with blue and purple. Most stylists derive their inspiration from the colour wheel. According to the colour wheel, warm and cool colours blend one way. And on the other hand, they also blend well in the opposite. For instance, deep green and dark blue jewellery items pop against an orange dress. Striking a perfect balance between cool and warm shades is basically what beauty is all about. Opposites attract. So, don’t limit yourself to matching options. Go For Diamonds Are you finding it hard to coordinate your jewellery with different outfits? If so, consider opting for diamonds. When exposed to light, the classic white diamond will elegantly show off all the shades that make up its composition. And this will make it easier for you to stay stylish. You can comfortably wear diamonds with any outfit. Key Takeaway Do you have an overflowing jewellery collection, but you don’t seem to be getting anything meaningful out of it? Then, think differently. Embrace creativity. It’s time you gather confidence and start trying different styles. Go through your collection and identify missing items. And once you’ve done that shop around for those pieces of jewellery. Remember, fashion is all about being unique. Look for things that compliment your sense of style and personality. Incorporating fashionable jewellery into your look is always an incredible idea. The Bottom-Line So, you have finally decided to take your beauty to the next level? You’re now ready to turn things around, right? Do you want to make the most out of your jewellery collection and still remain stylish? Well, it all starts with being confident. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Don’t be conservative. That way, you’ll be able to stay fashionable. The above guide offers practical tips to help you accessorize like a pro. Good luck!

Tips to care for your jewellery: What you need to know

All of us love our gold jewellery. It is therefore only fair that the time and interest that we give to buying our favourite pieces should also go into caring for them. Storing them properly and cleaning will ensure that they retain their charm. We bring you some tips that can help you maintain those trinkets and increase their shelf life, courtesy of Deepshikha Gupta, VP Designer, Melorra. Segregate and store Jewellery pieces must be stored separately to avoid scratches or breakage. You can store them in soft-lined compartments and away from direct sunlight, dampness, or even extreme temperatures. Often, it is better to store them in the boxes they come with. You can also wrap gold and precious/semi-precious stones in acid-free tissue or cotton to ensure they don’t catch dust or moisture. Wear them with care Your jewellery should be the last thing you put on when you get ready. Makeup and other cosmetics can contaminate jewellery, so let all of that dry before you wear your jewellery. This is because the chemicals in these can cause discolouration. Clean them gently Make sure to regularly and gently clean all your jewellery for removing oil, dust or other kinds of contamination. You can use simple things like soap and water and a soft toothbrush to clean them. However, do not rub or handle them roughly. Take a jeweller’s advice if you are unsure of how to clean them. There are special jewellery cleansing materials available for gold. Buy certified jewellery Right paperwork is as important for precious jewellery as for anything else that you own. This will ensure that you can get the pieces rectified in case there is damage. Keep all the certificates with you, especially in the case of diamond jewellery. “Lightweight gold jewellery is for any time, anywhere. Hence, caring for them is as important as servicing your car or any other household item. This will make sure that your jewellery retains its shine and is always ready to wear. Following these tips can help and also ensure your jewellery game is always on point,” she added.

Are Lab-Grown Diamonds Forever? Depends on Who You Ask

When Michael Coan went in for an interview at Christie’s, one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses, his interviewer laid out 20 items for him to price. Some of them were diamonds. Coan, who currently teaches gemology at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York but knew less about diamonds at the time, made up his mind: He wouldn’t be getting this job. “I walked in there not knowing a darn thing.” But Coan took a stab anyway, listing off prices: “This bracelet’s $20,000, this is about $45,000, this is $12, this is about $18,” he remembered saying. “I’m thinking, ‘Okay, that’s it. I had a good day. I’m leaving.’” But he had priced the items closely enough — and landed the job. The predicament that pleasantly surprised Coan years ago underscores a conversation that’s been shaking up the jewelry industry in recent years: how much a diamond is really worth. In a world where diamonds can quickly be grown in labs and customers are increasingly aware of ethical and environmental consumption concerns, both lab-grown and mined diamond companies are crafting a precise narrative to woo prospective customers.about:blankabout:blank First produced in the early 1950s, synthetic diamonds are cheaper to manufacture and purchase than ever before. Meghan Markle even sported lab-grown diamond earrings on a London outing. Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, has thrown his weight behind a lab-grown diamond company, the Diamond Foundry. The market for lab-grown diamonds increased as much as 20 percent in 2019, according to Bain and Company, a management consulting firm. Still, it remains unclear just how synthetic diamonds will carve out their place in the jewelry world —- but diamond experts harbor strong opinions. What Is a Diamond, Anyway? Clear, crystalline and sharp, diamonds are known for their hardness. They’re actually the hardest naturally occurring substance in the world and, although they’re solely composed of the element carbon, diamonds themselves are considered a mineral. Diamonds aren’t found that deep within the earth — only about 100 miles. But to form naturally, they require precise conditions: Carbon must receive 725,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, which only happens within the earth over the course of billions of years. Although we often associate diamonds with sparkly rings and engagement promises, most of them don’t end up in jewelry. Only 30 percent of natural diamonds make the cut to be considered “gem quality,” according to the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). The rest are used for industrial purposes, mostly as an abrasive, a tool to polish or sand other materials. But the vast majority (by some estimates, 98 percent) of diamonds don’t come from these natural byproducts and are mostly synthetic. “The only way that mined diamonds are economic is if they’re sold as jewelry,” says Paul Zimnisky, an independent diamond industry analyst. The Diamond’s Dark History Diamonds weren’t always a crucial part of the engagement equation. They didn’t receive a major marketing campaign until 1947 when De Beers, one of the oldest and most prominent diamond businesses (considered a monopoly for a time), ensured that these shiny gemstones became synonymous with marriage proposals. about:blankabout:blank The infamous ad featured the slogan, “A Diamond Is Forever,” with images of dreamy prospective wives sporting dazzling rocks. Around 20 percent of brides received engagement rings around when the ads started, but the portion shot up to 80 percent by 1990, according to a 2019 report by De Beers. In turn, it became one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time. But diamonds have always had a sinister side — one associated with conflict borne of a history of colonial exploitation for natural resources and economic gain, coming at the expense of the independence and stability of the inhabitants of diamond-rich nations. In countries including Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, diamonds mined by forced labor have funded violent rebel groups. Gemstones linked to these acts are known as “conflict diamonds.” An effort called the Kimberley Process was established in 2000 to curb their market presence, verify diamond origins and create a legitimate flow of capital to these countries. But diamonds can’t always be traced back to their original source. Overall, certification processes aren’t foolproof. Not to mention, the climate crisis has increasingly alerted customers toward the extraction of the world’s limited natural resources and its environmental toll. According to the Diamond Foundry, a manufacturer of lab-grown diamonds, the synthetic version comes with a much lower carbon footprint production, emits lower quantities of greenhouse gases, creates less waste and uses less water. Of course, the natural diamond industry’s Diamond Producers Association disputes this, and published their own figures that pointed to the opposite. Enter Lab-Grown Diamonds While working for General Electric in 1954, physical chemist H. Tracy Hall created the first synthetic diamonds that could be reproduced commercially. They weren’t meant for jewelry, but rather as industry-oriented abrasives. Since then, the technology to “grow” lab-made diamonds has become more advanced and less costly. Lab-grown diamonds of “gem-grade” are easier than ever to manufacture, and make up a small but steadily growing portion of the diamond trade — about four to six percent, according to Zimnisky. about:blankabout:blank Today, synthetic diamonds can be created with high-temperature high-pressure or chemical vapor deposition techniques. In the first method, carbon material is enclosed in a multi-layered container and then essentially pressed with enough force on all sides by anvils to change the carbon’s atomic structure. With chemical vapor deposition, slivers of existing diamonds are placed in a high-temperature chamber where carbon-rich gases break down their molecular bonds and the pure carbon attaches to the slivers or “seeds,” accumulating slowly as pure diamond, eventually turning the “seeds” into sizable gems. To the untrained eye, lab-grown diamonds seem identical to mined ones, and can only be identified as “lab-grown” with specialized spectroscopy equipment. Many of the worlds’ manufactured diamonds also come from countries that mine them, and according to Niraj Sojitra, they’re here to stay. Sojitra manages a lab-grown diamond business called Unique Lab Grown Diamond. They grow their gemstones in India, and have offices in four countries. When Sojitra started the business seven years ago, they saw it as the future of diamond jewelry. “In the world population, how many people can afford a natural diamond? It’s like, two or five percent, maximum,” he says. “So we were thinking about the largest scheme for people who cannot afford natural diamonds.” Recently, lab-grown diamonds have gained legitimacy as bigger companies like De Beers and Pandora began selling them, Sojitra says. It also helps that the GIA, a major accrediting body, began to certify lab-grown diamonds. “People used to think we were crazy. Now they realize we were not crazy. We did the right thing,” he says. The traditional diamond industry, unsurprisingly, argues that natural diamonds provide jobs for people in developing nations, and emphasize lab-grown diamonds’ environmental toll (the energy used to power diamond plants). about:blankabout:blank To this, Sojitra says that his business plans to transition into solar power to run the India-based labs within the next few years. And Sojitra rejects the premise of lost jobs. “There’s no machines working the labs. There are people handling the machines,” he says. “So, is it better to work in an air-conditioned office and handle the machines, or do you want to go down and dig in the earth?” Why Natural Retains Its Appeal The marketing of the “natural” diamond, however, still influences our collective imagination and stirs our desire for a good story. Michael Fried, CEO of an online diamond exchange called The Diamond Pro, says that customers who choose natural diamond want to feel like they’re buying something special. “They’re driven to the story of something that’s been in the ground for billions of years that’s been forged over time,” he says. “It all pulls on people’s heartstrings in a certain way. I’m not saying it’s logical, but people are still driven towards it.” Coan, meanwhile, feels that synthetic diamonds won’t be able to fulfill that need. “I don’t think natural diamonds will ever lose their place above synthetics, because in the mind’s eye we equate it with Frankenstein,” Coan says. “Diamonds truly appeal to the mystery, the lore. Diamonds truly are forever — nothing comes close to a diamond.” A Place for Both? There’s plenty of reasons to choose lab-grown diamonds or natural ones, but experts say that neither will win out any time soon. Fried points out that though younger diamond buyers at his online store are interested in making a more “ethical” purchase, ultimately it’s not always up to them — but rather, who is paying for it. “Millennials and Gen Z’s are 100 percent more interested in lab-grown diamonds.” But that doesn’t mean that they’re not getting pressure from other places, he says. “How many parents or in-laws are going to be okay with a lab-grown diamond?” Still, Sojitra says that more and more young people are interested in making what they see as a more ethical choice. “It’s pocket-friendly for most people, and especially the millennials.” Major companies have started selling synthetic ones, he adds, possibly sensing that the tide has turned. The market says otherwise: As synthetic sales grew in 2019, Bain & Company predicted that rough and polished diamond sales would decline by 25 percent and 10 percent. Even if certain consumers’ preferences for the natural version linger, the Earth has a finite amount of profitable diamonds (which some speculate may run out by around 2050, or at least bring dramatic supply gaps in coming decades). In 2019, Bain & Company foresaw an 8 percent annual decrease in natural diamond supply beginning in 2021, a shortage now likely amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the natural diamond industry can’t possibly keep mining forever, Sojitra says, “Natural diamonds are going to vanish in the next ten, 15 years. And then what? Day by day, the cost is getting higher.”