The art and science of “Mood Jewelry”

Today, as I was organizing the drawers of my dresser, I came upon this piece of jewelry that I had bought a few months ago.  It’s a beautiful pendant with two multicolored dragons in Yin and Yang symbol. Now, the special thing about this piece of jewelry is that it is a “mood jewelry”! If you feel like an ignorant at this stage, please don’t, because my reaction was also the same – “What? I am sure that they could have come up with some less stupid way to market their product!” But folks, not only does it exist, but it has been around for quite sometime now, as most of you might already know (I know that most of the people don’t live in the kind of ignorance that I do ☺). And while I held this piece of jewelry in my hand and gave a serious thought to buy it, the scientist in me kept on mocking at me and reminding me that this was something that the scientists don’t do… they don’t let a piece of jewelry control them, or read them, for that matter. Although, buying it did seem like a stupid idea, but the concept was not only interesting but intriguing as well, so I just went along with it and bought it…..out of curiosity. Well, the pendant was beautiful as well, but that was secondary ☺.

When I first wore it, which was the very next day, the colours of the pendant kept changing all the time. But the thing is, for the whole day that day, every time it changed it’s colour, I would rush to have a look at the colour chart that came with this jewelry.  The colour chart had meanings for all the colours that the pendant would possibly change to, while you were wearing it. Now don’t laugh at me at this, but, at the end of the day, I became so dependent on this mood pendent (literally ☺), that I found myself quite handicapped in knowing how I felt, unless I saw the colour change and read the colour decoding mood chart (lol..). I consulted that chart so many times that by now, I know the meanings to all the colours by heart. A few main ones are:

•            Blue is being in a relaxed state

•            Green is for being in a somewhat relaxed

•            Purple is for feeling love

•            Black is when you are anxious…. and you know what, it did turn black when for a moment, when I thought that I might have lost the color de-coding chart, and panicked that I won’t be able to know how I feel anymore. Haha….ok ok…no more exxageration!!

The science behind the mood jewelry

This mood jewelry actually changes colour according to the wearer's skin temperature and because people's emotional state is often accompanied by temperature changes, this gives an indication of mood. It is made from a crystal called-  “thermochromic liquid crystal”.

It is a unique type of crystal with the properties that are in between those of a liquid and a crystal. They may be able to flow like a liquid but their molecules show a rigid structure.

And you know, your LCD screens are made from the same thing, since some of these crystals show colour change when electric current is passed through them.  LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Displays.

These Liquid crystals can also be used as plastic thermometers like visual indicators of the temperature of refrigerators and tropical fish tanks.

And, last but not the least, in certain cases, they can even help control panic attacks by being used as biofeedback devices. So, because of the colour change in the piece of jewelry that the person is wearing, patient gets an in-time warning and then the meditation can be used to try to prevent the panic attack or to reduce its effects. Isn’t that amazing- something very valuable? Like I did the other day…when the colour of my pendant turned black, indicating that I was anxious, I sat down and ate chocolates and kept eating them, all focussed, till the colour turned to “less stressed” one (lol…).

And, I just thought up of another use for it. If you are not sure how your girlfriend/boyfriend feels about you, gift them this jewelry and wait for it to turn purple. Right?

If you are curious, love colours, ‘anxious’ sometime, fun loving; or either one of these, I would say that this “mood jewellery” is a must have!