Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design Blog

Hi! It's Alice again! I've been doing some research into the lovely and unusual stone, iolite, which I thought you might be interested in.

Iolite is actually the gem quality version of Corderite, which was named after the French geologist Pierre L.A. Cordier, who first described it in 1813. It is also known as "water sapphire" because of its lovely pale bluish colours that can vary from violet to a blue-green or grey.

Iolite is pleochroic, which means it shows different colours (in this case, three) when viewed from different angles. The best blue colour is seen when viewed down the length of the crystal; when viewed across the crystal it can appear almost colourless. Tanzanite is a blue-violet gemstone variety of the mineral zoisite, has strong pleochroism as well and can be easily confused with iolite. However, tanzanite is usually more strongly coloured, its pleochroic colours vary from dark blue, green-yellow and red-purple and it has greater fire. The pleochroism exhibited in both these stones makes a gem cutter's job very hard work!

Iolites are fairly brittle, exhibiting conchoidal tendencies (breakages look like sea shells) or uneven fractures, so they are also difficult to find in square cuts like baguettes and princess cuts, and in larger sizes. Most other cuts are fairly widely available. Highly facetted cuts like the brilliant are particularly good for pale stones like iolite as they seem to concentrate the colour, making it look stronger, darker, and more sparkly.

We can get iolite down to around 2mm in size but we wouldn't recommend setting pieces this size in rings because of its frailty, particularly where the stones are set around the back of the finger as in some eternity rings. A harder stone that could replace it is a pale blue sapphire, although in these smaller sizes it will be difficult to reproduce the lilac-y shades that are seen in iolite.

This is one of my favourite commissions we have made using iolite – it was designed by Becky.

These pieces are currently in our ready to wear collection:

And this gorgeous twist ring is in our Purple Label collection:

Iolite is found in Sri Lanka and Myanmar primarily, but large, flawless pieces have also been found on Garnet Island in Canada. Some are up to 5cm long! Iolite is also found in Madagascar, Tanzania, Brazil and South Africa.

Interestingly, when Viking explorers ventured out into the Atlantic Ocean, far away from any coastline, it is said iolite was their secret gem weapon; they used thin pieces of iolite as the world's first polarizing filter. Looking through an iolite lens, they could determine the position of the sun, helping them to navigate safely.

Iolite is believed to be the gemstone of happiness and joy. It is also believed to possess Feng Shui properties that help build relationships with others. For people who believe in these things, iolite is supposed to cure sore throat, varicose veins and various skin eruptions and blisters.

Interesting links:

• http://www.gemstone.org/gem-by-gem/english/iolite.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordierite

Bye for now!

Hi! It's Alice here! I thought you might like to see this little table I found and adapted while doing some research into diamond cuts – it made me smile cos for me it's surprisingly accurate!!

Apparently, a New York diamond appraiser called Saul Spero spent 25 years interviewing people to determine if there was any relationship between personality and the diamond shapes they like. He wrote a book all about it, called "Diamonds, Love, and Compatibility", but (to paraphrase) he states that if someone has a strong preference for a particular shape she can be characterised according to the table below:

	Shape	Personality Traits
	Round	Family-cantered, dependable, un-aggressive
	Oval	Individualistic, creative, well-organized, willing to take chances
	Heart	Sentimental, feminine, sensitive, trusting
	Rectangle/Square	Disciplined, conservative, efficient, honest
	Pear	Conforming, considerate, adaptable
	Marquise	Extroverted, innovative, career-centred

All the best!

I am occasionally asked about allergic reactions to precious metals by customers wearing an engagement ring and so just wanted to write a few lines here which may help as they are also from personal experience.

I have fairly sensitive skin I suppose, but hadn't ever had an allergic reaction to a metal or anything like that. When I started wearing an engagement ring all of the time, though, I got a very red itchy sore patch underneath my engagement ring (a bit like eczema) which really flared up and was very uncomfortable and unsightly - a sort of contact dermatitis or something (totally unmedical so don't know exactly what it was called!).

When I chatted with a friend who is a GP about it, they told me that this was very unlikely to be an allergy to the precious metal (as the precious metals are very rarely allergens and of course our precious metals don't contain nickel or anything nasty like that). However, the friend suggested that it might well be a reaction to liquid soap.

I have always worn a lot of rings, but prior to my engagement ring, I didn't wear a ring with a stone all of the time. Apparently, liquid soap may not cause an allergic reaction when used and washed off normally, but it is an allergen and is very viscous and so it is easy not to wash it off properly without realizing. So if you are wearing a ring with a cavity (eg behind a stone) it can gather there without you knowing because it isn't visible. So you can very easily not wash the liquid soap detergent off underneath the ring and then if left to dry and stay there, this can easily cause this nasty reaction. So my friend advised taking the ring off until the finger had healed up properly (which took about 3 weeks ish) and then starting to wear it again whilst never using liquid soap (only bar soap).

At first I didn't believe this could be the cause of the problem. But I followed this advice and sure enough have never had a problem since.

I have shared this with a few customers over the years who have thought they were having an allergic reaction to the metal and, like me, though skeptical at first, every single one has contacted me later and said "Yes! It worked! Hurrah!".

Obviously I am not an allergy specialist or anything so you should see a dermatologist, allergy specialist or other medical practitioner if you aren't sure but the above may be worth a try before you panic and think you can't wear your lovely engagement ring!

Hope it helps

Harriet

Interesting links:

• The UCB Institute of Allergy
• The NHS Direct
• The Healthy House Ltd have been recommended to me but I haven't tried anything from there yet