Latoya Nunez
I love many things about this necklace. The silver has a great, white color to it, and a good finish (shiny and slick). The color of the stone is very pretty - just like a lake I once canoed, a lake that was bottomed with white sand and, on a sunny day, was the most improbable blue in the middle of a pine wood. I like that the stone is oblong and set horizontally, because it's a little unusual and stands apart in that way. But the setting has a feature I just can't stand, which may be meant to be decorative, or protective, but either way I wish it wasn't there: the back of the stone has been caged in by concentric circular slats, which do a couple different things. They adds weight, which may be needed to keep the pendant hanging the correct way (don't know), and they close in the back off the stone, which may have been to intentionally protect it from being chipped or scratched. From the front, the slats also create a kind of scatter or reflection through the stone, which increases the sparkles in it dramatically; unfortunately, instead of merely making the stone more brilliant, it just makes the stone look like a really cheap rhinestone, and I dislike it the effect intensely. Enough that I don't know if I'll actually wear this, because I feel like I'm wearing something kind of tacky. The other effect of the "cage" behind the stone is that dirt and grease and lint from clothing and skin (if I wear this) will build up on the back of the stone and the inside of the slats, and there is no way to get in there to clean it, so the stone will look duller and duller and worse each time it is worn, until it's just a cloudy mess. What were they thinking??! I've never seen a stone that was caged in before, except the kind of cheap rhinestones that are foil-backed and need to be put in a closed setting because the backs of each are not attractive; why you would choose to close in the back of a pretty, clear stone that has its own internal sparkle is beyond me. I think it was a terrible decision that ruined an otherwise beautiful necklace. What a shame.
