I get a lot of questions about using black stones so I decided to write a bit more about them 🙂
The unfortunate truth about the Swarovski colour Jet is that it has a less sparkly appearance than say, Crystal AB or even most other colours. Jet stones are so opaque that light cannot pass though them – light only bounces off of them. So you don’t get that sparkliness of light getting inside the crystal and bouncing around in different directions and coming back out (if you’re really into gems and diamonds and want to learn more about cuts, here is a quick and interesting article). Crystal sparkle involves a lot of the same principals. Not that Jet is unpleasant by any means; light still bounces off of it, so it still has sparkle, but just without that kind of “brilliance” from non-opaque stones.
One way to help with making things look a bit more sparkly when working with Jet is to throw in a few Jet Hematite stones randomly. Jet Hematite has a silvery look (similar to mercury) and it adds a tad brighter sparkle to the overall effect… however using too much of them causes your project to start becoming a lot more silver than black.
There is one Swarovski black colour that is fabulous and I wish they made more stones sizes and shapes in, and that colour is Cosmo Jet. It’s everything you want in a black stone: still black, but clear enough that light can bounce in and out of the stone without looking grey or washed out. There are only a couple round flatback sizes, and I can’t help but wonder why they don’t produce more.
There is also Jet AB (AB being a coating) however it has a distinctively greenish-gold colour – in fact you wouldn’t even necessarily realize it was Jet under there. Personally, I don’t even categorize this colour under “black”.
Jet Nut is similar in which it has a tinted coating that makes it look like a very deep chocolaty brown.
The colours Black Diamond and Silver Night are beautiful, non-opaque (quite sparkly!) stones but definitely look grey, not black. But depending on the effect you are after, could be useful to know. In the hair accessory picture posted above, that large stone right above the comb is Silver Night.
Here is a necklace we put together recently, which showcases strands of different black stones… see if you can pick out which is which 😉
