PERFECTLY PERIDOT

I love August. Sure it’s hot outside (though as a California native, I hardly notice…, and in fact, I’m crazy about it), but many people are in vacation mode, and that means t-shirts and flip flops and ice cream and smiles on faces. And August means celebrating Peridot – that beautiful granny smith apple green that I absolutely love.

Peridot is one of those stones that is mined is a multitude of places (Arkansas, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico in the U.S.; and in many places abroad, including Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, Norway, Saudi Arabia, to name a few). However, a great disparity exists between average stones and gem quality stones, and the gems are rarer and rarer and infinitely more spectacular than their common cousins. As a colored stone junkie forever in search of the most beautiful, clean, inclusion-free, special specimen, I’m drawn to the best of the best – coming from the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Anyone who knows me knows unequivocally that I’m nuts for this color. My “corporate” color is chartreuse, my show display pieces are made in ultrasuede in the same shade, and even my bedroom walls are painted the same electric green. In fact it’s so prevalent in my world that many people in my life refer to it as “Suzy green.”

All the skeptics who are quick to label the color too “loud” or too bright or too “much” are surprised when they put on a piece of peridot jewelry: It looks great. And in fact it looks great on absolutely everyone — blondes, brunettes, redheads, and on the darkest to lightest skin tones. See for yourself. Really.