Let those jewels suit you

As poetry is beautified with rhetorical words, a woman’s charm is enhanced
by dazzling jewellery, feels Banalata Bipani

YES! The prices of gold and silver have zoomed. But still, although on a lesser scale, you find that you have to buy jewellery. It is very important that you must choose well, keeping into consideration your body silhouette and other factors that make the same jewellery a grand success for some women, and an unmitigated disaster for others.

OK, let us begin. The first thing you should remember while buying jewellery is to find out what would be its resale value if you have to sell. I know that elders in the family, especially grandmothers, do not want any such "inauspicious" thoughts while buying jewellery, which is a happy and sacred occasion. But remember, a few years later, if you were to sell this jewellery and buy more modern contemporary one, the money you could get in return would be a big advantage.

Remember, the buy back rate varies from store to store, based on the purity of your gold. Dependable jewellery firms like Tanishq have adopted the modern and accurate method of testing gold by using a carat meter. The buy back rate is then fixed according to the current price of gold, and you are paid only for the percentage of pure gold in your jewellery.

Again, when a jeweller buys your piece of jewellery, he pays you only for the value of gold in it as per the current market price, without paying you the making cost, that you were charged when you first bought it. However, some jewellers deduct between 1 to 3 per cent of the value when they buy back gold to cover the expense they have to incur due to melting, wastage or impurities.

Here is a little secret: while 22-carat gold is usually used for making plain gold jewellery or exquisite sets inlaid with rubies and other gem stones, you never use 22 carat to create diamond jewellery — it has to be made in 18-carat gold as the 22-carat gold is too soft to hold the diamonds in place.

Remember, stones do not have much of a resale value. But jewellery stores claim that diamond has resale value based on the quality of the stone, while the other colour stones don’t usually have resale value. For instance, if you want to sell a ruby-studded gold pendant, which has gold worth Rs 10,000 and rubies worth Rs 500, you may get only the money for the gold, i.e. Rs 10,000. However, certain stores may offer you a small amount based on the quality of the stone or your jewellery pattern.

A word of advice. Do not take a friend along unless you have discussed this matter with her/him, and know that the friend’s jewellery ideas are similar to yours; and most essential of all, she is blatantly truthful and really willing to help.

Next comes the question of deciding what type of jewellery suits you. We look at our faces every day, and instinctively are attracted to the shapes of jewellery that will suit our basic bone structure and sense of style. Your face is the first to be seen by others, and a lot of depends on matching the jewellery to your face type. For example, round faces need to take away the emphasis from the fullness, and longer earrings help deflect from the roundness of the face. Hoops or button style studs will only make the face appear rounder. But chandelier earrings, which are wider at the bottom, suit the heart-shaped faces, which are thinner by the chin. Plain long dangling earrings of the ones which taper to the end will make these faces appear longer.

If we segregate the face shapes in basic types, these would be eight — oval, round, oblong, heart, diamond, square, rectangle and triangle. The first four face shapes are soft and curved. The last four shapes have more angles and corners.

An oval face is slightly longer than it is wide with curved soft edges. A round face will have equal distance all around, with the nose as a center point. It will be as wide as it is long with rounded edges. An oblong face is an elongated oval shape. Many oblongs are mistaken for an oval. But placed next to a true oval, you can see that they are oblong.

A heart shape is wider at the eye, temple and cheek area with a narrow chin. The edges are soft and curved. A diamond face shape is widest at the cheeks, narrow at the chin and forehead. It has sharper features. A square face is basically straight across at the forehead and along the side of the face. The jaw is strong and square. The chin may stick out a bit. When the distance from the top of the face to the chin matches the width, this is a square face.

A rectangle face is similar to a square. But the face is longer than it is wide. A triangle face is similar to a heart shape. But the lines and edges are sharper and more angular.

Apart from colour and design, the necklace style can change the viewer’s perception of the height of the wearer. A short woman wearing longer necklaces will look taller. Necklaces that fall in the shapes of V or Y, will make you appear taller. This length is below bosom but not past the waist.

A 16 to 18 inches necklace resting on the collarbone or a choker sitting snug at the throat will make a very tall woman seem shorter. Chunkiness of the necklace affects the appearance, too. — MF

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