J320023 APATITE CUFF: Simply glorious! The stones are clear & gorgeous. The silver carving is spectacular. The design is beautiful. Enough said!!!
J320138 LBT "LOVE" CUFF: Love it!. Stone has nice saturation, but is not too dark (as some London blue is). Whimsical design. Great carving. Width is perfect. A winner!
J320278 LAVENDER WATCH: The color of the watch is beautiful - prettier than it is in the picture. The band is nice leather. The face is pretty too, but very thin, making the whole watch a very light-weight piece. This is not necessarily a minus, but for the price, it seems expensive. The silicone watches had a lot more heft to the case. $99 would have been enough for this watch.
J320301 LBT TENNIS BRACELET: Gorgeous. Looks even better than it did on air. The LBT stones are very saturated, but a gorgeous color & not too dark. The piece is very dainty. It does not feel flimsy, but it is light in weight because of its size. It is drop-dead gorgeous, but if you are looking for "chunkier", like the ice cube bracelet, this is not it.
J320988: BLACK SPINEL & RHODOLITE EARRINGS: I am returning these for 2 reasons. The rhodolite stones are on the dark side & don't have that beautiful pink glow unless you hold them up to the light or are outside in the sunlight. Maybe the fact that they are surrounded by black spinel also contributes to the darkness. In any event, there is not enough contrast between the rhodolite & the black spinel. The second reason is that I have the black spinel & multi-gemstone cuff that they were pushing throughout these shows, & the larger garnet stone in it is regular garnet, not rhodolite. There is only one tiny rhodolite stone on the edge of the cuff (which has the smaller stones). Also, I thought I could wear these ERs w/ the old BO & rhodolite thick cuff that Judith made years ago, but the rhodolite in that cuff does have the beautiful pink glow, & these ERs don't even seem to coordinate w/ it.
J338551 & J319974: The "LOVE YOU ALWAYS" CHARM & THE BIRD ENHANCER: I am putting both of these together because they both have the exact same bail (in size & in design), & the bail is TOTALLY INOPERABLE. First, I tried attaching the bird enhancer to a link in a link chain - totally impossible. The push bail opens about 1/16". Then I tried attaching it to the thinnest Ripka chain I had: the DMQ station chain. After 10 minutes of pushing & shoving, & after breaking 2 nails, I finally got the bail to open enough to attach to this paper thin chain. But the worst part was trying to get it off the chain. The chain kept getting stuck in the opening of the bail, would not come out no matter how hard I squeezed the bail, & I found myself pulling the chain so hard I thought I would either break it or have to send the bird back to QVC WITH the chain. Half an hour later, I managed to detach the enhancer from the chain. I then got the brilliant idea that maybe I could slip this bail onto an open lobster claw clasp & then close the lobster claw so that I did not have to fool w/ the push bail of the enhancer at all. But because the texturing on this small bail makes it thick, I had to FORCE it onto the opening of the lobster claw, & once I got it in, getting it out was a repeat performance of getting it off the thin chain. By this time, I am cussing like a sailor because I do not have this kind of time in my life to waste, much less on jewelry which is supposed to be one of life's pleasures. In defense of the bird enhancer, (& God only knows it needs one!), this piece is absolutely gorgeous. The bird is small, but is carved on both sides & has beautiful detail. The amethyst that hangs from it is one of THE MOST gorgeous emerald-cut amethysts I have seen in the Ripka collection. It is big & has a divine color. Imagine a piece like this being ruined by an inoperable bail! What happened to the good old snap hinge bails w/ the figure-8 safety clasps, which allowed a lot more flexibility in the way you could wear the enhancers because they fitted on almost everything. Even the older push bails, such as the one on the star charm & the lock charm w/ the amethyst heart, were much bigger & therefore opened a lot wider. THESE 2 ITEMS NEED TO BE RECALLED & RE-DESIGNED. No wonder they weren't presented on air. No one could put them on any chain!
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