Hard to Shop For? Not Anymore!

“My wife never wears the gifts I give her,” say some men.  

Your Jewelry Doctor creates a lot of gifts (and provides others from her sources). They always get rave reviews.  Now yours can, too.  

What’s the secret?  Well, remember the “reconnaissance mission”? 

“If you’ll excuse me, Doctor, that operation is used in war.  We’re talking about love.”

True.  But “gaining intelligence”—here, about your special someone’s taste in jewelry—makes the difference in both worlds.

Here’s how it works:  on a date, or across the breakfast table, notice what kinds of things your sweetheart loves to wear.  

Color

Earth tones or jewel tones?   Warm colors or cool colors?  Pastels or true colors?  Does she wear a lot of black?  Does she like colors that blend, sharp contrast, or a bit of both?

Shape

Now let's consider the outline of the kinds of jewelry she loves.  What kinds of shapes does she choose?  Round?  Oval?  Pear-shaped?  Triangular?  (We call those "trillion.")  Rectangular? (We call the long ones "emerald," and the square, "princess.")  Does she prefer soft lines, or crisper ones--more "Art Nouveau," or more Deco?

Environment (and Personal Style)

Let's think about how she likes to wear the jewelry.  Does her style tend toward suits, or a more casual look?  Does she wear necklaces with a lot of texture or a mix of shapes, or something simple and elegant, like a solitaire pendant or a strand of pearls?  Are her earrings flush against the ear—we call that a “button post” or a “stud”—or a dangle?  How long a dangle does she like? 

When Lights Are Low

You’d be amazed how much information you can pick up over breakfast.  And if you want to step up your game, go out for a romantic dinner.  Does her jewelry change?  Obviously, it’ll be dressier.  But does she also choose different colors and/or shapes for special times?

What She Chooses for Herself

Next time you’re home alone, take a look at her jewelry box.  Notice any patterns?  Just as men often buy the same kinds of ties with slight variation, women often favor, say, a simple gold pendant on a chain.  You might see three or four of these, each with a different gemstone.  Look to see if there are coordinating earrings.  Does she prefer matching jewelry, or what we could call “counterpoint”—i.e., jewelry that coordinates, but doesn’t repeat the same exact pattern?

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Make some notes.  And take a picture of your special someone, if you don’t have a recent one.  It not only feels great to have that with you, it makes a big difference when you shop.  I’ve helped people choose gifts for loved ones across the country, using the clothes they’re wearing in a snapshot to determine their style.  (And those clothes are usually in the colors they prefer, too.)

Putting It Into Practice

So don’t be afraid to shop.  You’re no longer groping around in the dark.  Now when you go looking for gifts, you’re halfway there:  you already know what she likes!

What’s your next special occasion?  Anniversary on the horizon?  Is her birthday coming up soon?  Or is the woman in your life a mother?  Mother’s Day is just two weeks away.  Call your friendly neighborhood* Jewelry Doctor at 415/796-3969, and let’s put our heads together. 

San Francisco Jewelry Doctor.  We make gift-shopping fun.

*If you can read this, we’re in the neighborhood.

©2014 Laynie Tzena.

Building Your Jewelry Wardrobe, Part One: T.L.C.

I love helping people build their jewelry wardrobe.  As you might imagine, “building a jewelry wardrobe” doesn’t mean buying everything in sight, anymore than most people would take that approach when it comes to clothing or furniture.  We buy things we love that complement things we already have, fill in gaps, and sometimes we decide we want to expand a bit, too.  Nothing wrong with that. 

Let’s talk about taking care of the jewelry you already own and love.

Part One:  Taking Care of Your Jewelry:  A Little Maintenance
Goes a Long Way.

When you have things you love, you take care of them.  In the case of clothing, that means a regular trip to the dry cleaner and shoe repair.  Furniture doesn’t ask much—a shine now and then, perhaps a little T.LC. (“tender loving care”) to repair a nick on the surface.

Jewelry not only attracts attention when you wear it—especially you :>; it also needs attention at home.  Let’s take a look at jewelry set with prongs.  Well, you can take a look at it—the light shines clear through it.  That’s the magic.

But where a diamond or other gemstone with a bezel setting is protected on all sides (or, with the half-bezel, the stone is partially protected) from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, those prongs we were just talking about don’t cover all that much of the stone.

At the beginning, that’s not a problem, assuming you bought your jewelry from a reputable source:  the prongs in the setting hug the stone.  If the prong jewelry in question is a pendant, you’ll be fine for the foreseeable future. 

But think about a ring.  Some people sleep with their rings on.  Most people wear them at work.  So you turn in bed and the prong catches on the sheet, just a little, and you gently pull it back and maybe in the morning look, and it seems fine.  Or you’re talking with John or Kim about that project and your hand bumps against the phone as you’re checking something. 

A fly on the wall would tell you that both times the tip of the prong was bent, and in one case part of it broke off.  Tiny.  Easy to miss.

Another night tossing and turning, more projects at work, games with the kids, presentations, camping—so many opportunities for the tip of the prong to snap off and the prong itself to get yanked (just a bit each time), and then “Where did the stone go?”

Tip:  Write the date you bought your prong jewelry (or the date you received it) on your calendar.  Put it in the media you use for keeping track of appointments.  Now add a reminder every three to six months (depending on how active you are) to have the prongs checked to make sure they’re intact and see if they might need to be tightened or the tips or whole prongs might need to be replaced.  (You don’t want to overdo the tightening—remember, the prongs put pressure on the stone—but you want to be sure the prongs are strong and secure.)

Enjoy!  Prong jewelry does require attention, but seeing the light through the stone—doesn’t that make it worth a little effort?

©2014 Laynie Tzena.