Metal and Silicone “Awareness” Bracelets

Recently Nike and Lance Armstrong, through the Yellow Livestrong wristband, popularized coloured silicone rubber as a material for producing sports bracelets. Their success has led to ‘awareness’ bracelets being used as low-cost tools for information campaigns and charity projects. These sports bracelets are also known as baller ID bands, wristbands or baller bands.

Charm Bracelets

A charm bracelet carries personal charms: decorative trinkets or pendants which are signs of important factors in the wearer’s life. In more recent times, Italian charm bracelets have become fashionable. While traditional charms hang from the bracelet, Italian charms feature individual pieces soldered directly onto the link of the bracelet itself.

Bracelets that are in solid form are referred to as bangles or bangle bracelets. They can be textured, smooth or set with stones. In India, glass bangles are popular. They’re made from ordinary glass that is about 3-6mm in width, and worn in sets, so that moving your arm causes the bangles to make a sound like the chinking of wind chimes.

Azabache Bracelets (a gold bracelet or necklace with a black/red coral charm formed like a fist) are part of Latin culture. “Mal de ojo”, or “evil eye”, is believed to occur from the excessive admiration or envious looks by other people. Having newborn babies wear an azabache, is believed to protect them from the evil eye.

As time passed, charms diminished in religious significance and became fashion jewelry instead. The Victorians of the 1890’s spurred a renaissance of charms, due to their love of elaborate and intricate clothing and jewelry. Queen Victoria helped fuel the craze by wearing a charm bracelet of tiny lockets holding family portraits.

A second revival of charm bracelets occured in America in the Second World War era, as soldiers stationed abroad acquired charms as souvenirs from the European cities where they were stationed and brought these trinkets home as presents for wives and girlfriends. The fashion trend continued well into the 1950’s.

Charms have never entirely gone out of vogue, and are becoming increasingly popular today as personal keepsakes in an increasingly mass-produced jewelry market. Popular themes include horoscope signs, birthstone charms, travel souvenirs, and family keepsakes. Many women begin their charms collection when still in childhood, and the charm bracelet grows along with them, reflecting hobbies and experiences. A charm bracelet can hold a tiny replica of a sports trophy, a wedding bouquet, or even lockets holding family photos.

As well, charms are popular gifts because of their affordable cost. An intricate silver charm can be found for less than 10 dollars, though it’s possible to spend 100s of dollars on a 18k gold charm set with gems.

Italian charms, a genre in and of themselves, don’t dangle from a chain like traditional charms. Instead, each pattern is soldered onto a flat link which snaps onto an extensible bracelet. The patterns consist of letters, symbols, pictures, precious gems, or even have enamel pictures painted on them. Charms can be snapped on and off these modular bracelets to come up with new configurations to match different moods and outfits. These bracelets are traditionally manufactured of stainless steel, though the more expensive ones come in 18k gold. Each italian charm is of a standard interchangeable size and the resulting bracelet can be customized to any woman’s wrist; the smallest size holds seventeen or even less links, a medium eighteen, and a large nineteen or even even more.

There are different corporations which make Italian charms, however all brands are supposed to be interchangable on the basic bracelet. The “starter” bracelet of blank links costs around 5 dollars, and on the average charms run 15 dollars and higher. Ironically, China also manufactures a great number of these “Italian” charms, and while they are popular due to their low price, a select few consumers report occasional oddities like reversed images and off-size fit on the standard bracelet.

About the Author

Frank Hague is a self-professed connoiseur of Italian Charm Bracelets. http://www.italian-charm.info http://www.italian-charm-bracelet.info http://www.italian-charms-now.info

Written By: Frank Hague

Often times we even wear bracelets without even thinking about it. An easy example of this is a for medical and identification purposes, such as name tags, and health conditions in a hospital. One of the first major fads of braclets to move through was in the 1980’s, with ’snap bracelets’. Snap bracelets were metal bracelts that were covered with felt, or another soft material. Their shape was such that it could hold either a straight position, or be ’snapped’, to wrap around one’s wrist.

Presently we are going through another fad which is that of silicone rubber bracelets which normally have some type of writing on them to symbolize or support something. These bracelets were popularized by Nike and Lance Armstrong through the yellow Livestrong bracelet, which is Lance Armstrong’s charitable organization for Cancer research/awareness. These rubber bracelets are also commonly known as ‘wristbands’, ‘baller bands’ or ‘baller id bands’.

Not always true, but as in the example above bracelets are often times symbolic of something. Another example of a symbolic use of bracelets, is that with friendship bracelets which are usually self made bracelets given from one friend to another to symbolize their relationship. Bracelts come in all shapes and sizes and can be a very usefull way to remind yourself of something valuable, as your wrist goes everywhere you do.

About the author:

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Ryan Fyfe is the owner and operator of Pandora Charm Bracelets – http://www.pandora-charm-bracelets.com, which is the best site on the internet for all Bracelets related information.

Written By: Ryan Fyfe