Gemstone Earrings

A huggie is a small hoop, usually hinged, that closes tightly against the lobe rather than hanging from it - it 'hugs' the ear, which is where the name comes from.

The appeal is that it gives the look of a hoop with almost none of the movement or vulnerability. There is very little standing clear of the ear to catch on hair, scarves or a pillow, which makes huggies one of the most practical everyday earrings.

Most use a hinged snap closure that clicks shut, so they are also more secure than a stud with a friction back.

Screw backs are the most secure of the common fittings: the back threads onto the post rather than gripping it by friction, so it cannot simply work loose. They are the usual choice for children and for earrings worn constantly.

Hinged snap closures on huggies are also very secure, since the fitting latches shut rather than relying on grip.

Friction or butterfly backs are the standard fitting and are perfectly adequate for a light earring, but they do loosen with time and are the most common reason a stud goes missing. If that keeps happening, locking backs are an inexpensive fix.

The whole weight of an earring rests on one small piercing for as long as it is worn, and over years a consistently heavy earring can enlarge and stretch that hole.

This is a reason to be deliberate rather than a reason to avoid larger pieces. Wearing statement earrings for occasions and lighter studs or huggies day to day spreads the load, and lighter constructions with the same visual scale are worth looking for.

Note that platinum is denser than gold, so the same design weighs more in platinum than in 14K.

They are selected to match, and matching is more demanding in earrings than anywhere else, because the two pieces sit either side of a face and get compared constantly. Hue, saturation, tone, size and cut all need to agree.

Mined coloured stones vary naturally from one to the next, so a well-matched natural pair reflects genuine selection work.

Laboratory-grown stones and cubic zirconia are consistent by nature, which is one of the reasons they are used so widely in earrings.

Both are represented, and every listing names which is used in that design.

Where a coloured gemstone is specified, that is real gemstone material, whether mined or grown in a laboratory. Where cubic zirconia is specified, that is a man-made stone rather than a mineral.

Some designs use both - a coloured centre with cubic zirconia accents around it, for example - and the listing states that too.

Studs and huggies, for the same reason: neither has much standing clear of the ear. They pass under a helmet, through a night's sleep and past a scarf or a jumper without catching.

Hoops and drops are wonderful and they move, which is exactly why they read as occasion pieces. The larger they get, the more they catch on hair and clothing.

A practical approach is a light everyday pair kept in more or less permanently, with statement pieces for when they will be noticed.

A bezel wraps a rim of metal around the edge of the stone, and on an earring that solves two problems at once. It protects the girdle, which is where chips begin, and it removes the prongs that would otherwise catch in hair and clothing.

That matters most with pointed shapes. A marquise or pear has vulnerable tips, and a bezel covers exactly the part most likely to be knocked.

It also gives a clean, smooth outline that suits a small piece worn close to the skin.

Sensitivity to jewellery is usually a reaction to particular alloy metals rather than to gold itself, and higher-karat gold contains proportionally less alloy.

Keeping earrings and posts clean matters as much as the metal does, since residue trapped against a piercing causes irritation that gets blamed on the metal.

If you have had reactions to jewellery before, that is worth discussing with a doctor or a dermatologist rather than resolving by trial and error - we can tell you what a piece is made of, but not how a particular person will react to it.

Warm water, a little mild soap and a soft brush, cleaning both the front of the earring and the post and back, then rinsing thoroughly and drying with a soft cloth.

Earrings pick up more residue than any other piece, because hair products, cleansers and the skin's own oils all reach them. Cleaning them more often than you would a ring is sensible.

Avoid ultrasonic and steam cleaners on stone-set pieces, and put earrings in after perfume and hairspray rather than before.

It is an easy way to build a coherent set, and buying a pair of earrings and a necklace with the same stone gives you pieces that are obviously related without being identical.

Matching everything exactly is not necessary and can look staged. Repeating the stone while varying the setting - bezel-set studs with a solitaire necklace, say - usually looks better than repeating the entire design.

If you are building toward a set over time, noting the stone, the metal colour and the millimetre size of the first piece makes matching the second one far easier.