Apologies for the wait since my last post, it has been a while…I recently posted about fake links of London charms, and whilst I was researching the post I ended up reading a lot about sweetie bracelets, so I thought I would do a quick post about them.
Firstly, what are sweetie bracelets for those who don’t know? Sweetie bracelets were pioneered by Links of London, but they have been adopted by a number of different charm bracelet companies since then. They are made by an elasticated centre which is surrounded by tiny silver rings which vaguely resemble jump rings. The overall effect is a bracelet which looks like a really tight coil of silver and you can hang charms from the individual rings, or just wear it plain.
They are massively popular, and I think in some respects they have proliferated the current craze for charm bracelets and charms, adding a modernity to standard charm bracelets of the past. I think most notably sweetie bracelets are favoured by younger wearers (by which I mean girls between the ages of 14-35) whereas older women seem to opt for standard chain charm bracelets.
There do seem to be a few concerns, however, about sweetie bracelets, mainly because they are elasticated (I should mention at this point that sweetie bracelets are sometimes called elasticated bracelets). The first major concern that many of my friends have is that the elastic will not be strong enough and could snap. This would be a massive disaster sending charms and tiny rings of solid silver tumbling all over the place. I have a few sweetie bracelets, however, ranging from plated cheap ones I bought off of ebay, to the real deal, and none of them have ever shown signs of breaking, the elastic seems to be very strong, even amongst the cheap ones. As ever, I would advise you to go with a reputable brand if you are going to get one of these just to be on the safe side.
The second fear about sweetie bracelets is also to do with the elastic, and that they might be too tight. Normally girls wear 7” bracelets, with those who have larger wrists needing an 8” bracelet and younger wearers or petite girls needing a 6” bracelet. There is not a huge difference, however, between the sizes (only 2 inches across the spectrum from petite to thick wristed). Whilst such a difference might be very noticeable in a standard chain bracelet, and you would risk it slipping off if it were too big for example, the elasticated sweetie bracelets are very much designed for the middle ground.
The elastic will mean that they should happily fit younger girls who would normally wear a 6” bracelet. Some of my friends, however, who would buy an 8” bracelet, have been worried that it might be too tight, but I think I have come up with a solution if you are worried about that. The elastic obviously stretches, so by adding extra links around the elastic you can make the sweetie bracelet slightly larger. Obviously you cannot cut into the elastic without breaking the bracelet, but if you buy some jump rings which are the same size then you should be able to slip them over the elastic and then close them up again (you will need a pair of plyers). By adding in an extra 10-15 jump rings you can make the sweetie bracelet a slightly looser fit, and you don’t need to worry about it getting too tight. Most importantly, it also means you can add even more charms! For a bit of style, you could also consider adding gold plated jump rings – if you can find them – to add a little colour to your larger sweetie bracelet!
On the downside, sweetie bracelets are heavy, they use up a lot of silver, and even more so if you follow my advice and add a few more rings of your own. This means they do not come cheap, and other chain bracelets will often be a much cheaper way of getting started with your charm bracelet collection.
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