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Although Austrian lead crystal has been around for several hundred years, it wasn't until 1895 that Daniel Swarovski invented a method to cut and finish crystals with a precision that brought to life the true beauty of the lead glass crystal, and to allow the weight, sparkle and style that sets them apart to be employed for the purpose of jewellery making.
With the machinery now in place to manufacture cut crystal to a degree of perfection never before possible, Daniel Swarovski spent the next 20 years perfecting the formula to produce lead crystal of a flawless quality and it is this combination of materials and method that now results in the crystal that bears his name - Swarovski Crystal.
Swarovski Crystal use a high grade lead crystal glass - typically a full 32% of the glass is lead oxide for maximum optical purty - with a refractive index approaching that of diamonds. This means that a greater proportion of the light entering the crystal reflects off the inner surfaces, rather than passing straight through, creating a higher degree of "sparkle" than other forms of glass crystal.
What is an AB Swarovski Crystal?
AB Swarovski Crystal is named after the Aurora Borealis, the colourful "Northern Lights" which the crystals were named for. AB crystals produce a rainbow-like reflection of nearby colours, causing a reflection that mimic its surroundings in colour and tone.
Manfred Swarovski, Daniel's grandson worked with Christian Dior to perfect the process in 1956, by coating the crystals with a microscopic layer of reflective metal to give the stone it's unusual reflective properties.
Our range centres around 6 colours - aqua, blue, pink, purple, white and white AB. Although the jewellery descriptions indicate a single colour, the piece itself may have crystals in light, medium and/or dark shades of that colour.
Blue
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Aqua
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Pink
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Purple
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White
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White AB
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We have made every effort to display our jewellery as accurately as possible. All products have been described with sizes and accurate colours, however, we are aware that colours and images vary slightly according to the monitor they are viewed on. In most cases, the only surprise is that the products are far more brilliant in real life than the pixels of your monitor allowed us to show.
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Gold
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Antique Gold
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Silver
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Antique Silver
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The gold and silver appearance of our jewellery is acheived by electroplating the base metal used in the jewellery casting with either rhodium to acheive a silver finish, or gold to acheive a gold finish.
Rhodium Plating
Rhodium is a member of the platinum metals group and has the physical characteristics of hardness, high reflectivity, and a resistance to most acids and corrosive substances, including skin oils and acids.
It is one of the few white metals that will remain bright and reflective under all atmospheric conditions at room temperatures, and rhodium plated surfaces remain scratch resistant, bright and attractive for years.
Rhodium reflects about 72%-80% of the light rays that strike it, and while silver reflects up to 95% of all incidental light that strikes it, over the long term rhodium will stay brighter than silver because of its superior resistance to tarnishing and scratching.
Our jewellery has a plating thickness of between 0.3 and 0.6 microns, which is thick enough to avoid the yellowish tarnishing eventually seen on some cheaper jewellery that only use plating thicknesses of <0.2 microns which allows for base metals to seep up through the plating and discolour the surface.
Gold Plating
Our gold jewellery is gold plated with either 10 or 14 carat gold to a thickness of 0.2 to 0.3 microns allowing it to be defined as either flash-plated or electroplated. The surface hardness and wear resistance of these gold plated items is acheived by adding various alloys to the plating compound which, while reducing the gold content of the coating, significantly enhance its durability.
Antiquing
The antique finish of some of our pieces is acheived by applying an oxidising darkening agent to the surface of the metal and hand rubbing to remove some of the darkened metal from exposed sections of the design, while retaining the darker tone in recessed parts.
A slight residual stain remains causing even the exposed gold and silver areas to be somewhat darker than normal. The darkening agent is chemically fixed to the metal surface and will not transfer to skin or clothing.
Surgical Stainless Steel
The name originates from the fact that stainless steel does not stain, corrode or rust as easily as ordinary steel. All of our earrings have surgical stainless steel pins and backings.
Caring For Your Jewellery
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Please refer to our Care Instructions section.
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