Journal · 17 October 2025
How to choose, when everything looks lovely
There are more than a thousand pieces on this site and they are, broadly, all attractive. That is the problem. Here is how we would narrow it down if we were standing next to you.
Start with how you will use it, not what it is
The single most useful question is where the piece will spend its time.
- Worn every day — a bracelet or a pendant. It needs to survive sleeves, desks and washing hands, so harder stones and simpler settings last better.
- Used in practice — a mala. Bead size and count matter more than colour here, because you will be handling it rather than looking at it.
- Kept in one place — a tumble, a sphere, a tree, an idol. Nothing has to survive daily wear, so softer and more fragile materials are fine.
That one question removes most of the catalogue.
Then size, honestly
Bead size is the thing people most often get wrong. An 8mm bead reads as substantial on a wrist; a 6mm is discreet; a 10mm is a statement and is heavier than it looks in a photograph. For a mala, 6mm and 8mm are the common sizes and 8mm is easier to count with.
For carvings and spheres, check the dimensions rather than the photograph. A sphere photographed alone gives you no sense of scale at all.
Then material
Only now is it worth thinking about which stone or wood. Some of that is tradition — rudraksha and karungali have long histories in Indian devotional practice, and the navaratna stones are each associated with a graha. Some of it is simply that you like the colour, which is a perfectly good reason and one nobody should apologise for.
What we will not do
We will not tell you which stone is right for your situation, because that is not something we can know or promise. If you write to us we will tell you what a piece is made of, how big it is, how it is finished and how it wears. That is the part where we are actually useful.
One last practical thing
These are natural materials. Colour, banding and inclusions vary from piece to piece, and the photograph is of the stock we hold rather than an idealised sample. Yours will not be identical, and that is the nature of the thing rather than a fault.