We went up the coast for six weeks and exactly one piece of jewellery came out of the bag.
Six things that made a thirty-nine dollar bracelet the only thing I wore between Melbourne and Noosa, from a woman who over-packs everything.
Nancy Brooks · Customer · Melbourne, VIC · 5 min read
We left Melbourne in the second week of June, which is the only sensible thing my husband has suggested in forty years. Up through the Hunter, a long stop at Coffs, then Hervey Bay and a fortnight near Noosa before we turned round.
I packed the way I always pack, which is badly. Two of everything, and a little zip jewellery roll with my good earrings, a silver bangle, the pendant, a spare watch. The roll went in the case in Melbourne and came out again in Melbourne six weeks later, and I do not believe I opened it once.
What I wore, for forty-one days, was a leather bracelet with three birds on it that had cost me thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. Not because I had decided anything. Because it was already on, and nothing about the trip ever gave me a reason to take it off.
Six things, then, about why that one thing survived the trip when the roll never got unzipped.
It was the only thing I would not have minded losing
This is the real reason the roll stayed shut and it took me most of the Hunter to work it out. You do not wear good jewellery away because you spend the whole time thinking about it. Where is it, is the van locked, did I leave it on the sink at the amenities block. That is not a holiday, that is a job. Mine was on my wrist and it cost less than a tank of fuel. If it had gone down a drain at Coffs I would have been cross for an afternoon and ordered another when we got home.
"Took it to Bali and left the good stuff home. Best decision of the trip."
Sunscreen, sand and six weeks of sun did not touch it
I will be straight with you about this because it matters. I took it off to swim, every time, the way you would with any leather, and that is what you should do. What it did put up with was everything else, and up there that is a fair bit. Sunscreen twice a day, sand, salt in the air for a fortnight, and forty-one days of a Queensland winter that is warmer than a Melbourne summer. The leather has gone a slightly deeper brown, which I like. The birds have not dulled or flaked, largely because that aged silver tone was never trying to be mirror-bright to begin with.
"Three months of sunscreen and sea air and it has only gone a nicer colour."
It went with the four things I actually ended up wearing
You take twelve outfits away and you wear four. Everybody knows this and nobody packs accordingly. So whatever jewellery you bring has to work with the linen shirt, the cardigan for the cool mornings, the one decent top for going out, and whatever you had on in the car. Brown leather and aged silver goes with all of it. It does not fight my gold rings, it does not clash with a watch, and it looked no more out of place at a nice dinner in Noosa than it did at a caravan park barbecue.
"Wore it every day for a month away. It suited absolutely everything I had packed."
No noise in the car and nothing catching on the seatbelt
Six weeks is a great deal of driving and small irritations become large ones somewhere around the third week. A metal bangle taps on the door trim, catches under the seatbelt every time you reach for it, and clinks on the table at every meal in every cafe between here and Queensland. This is a double strand of soft leather rather than a chain, so it is completely silent, it does not snag on a jumper sleeve, and it left no grey-green mark on my wrist in six weeks of heat, which cheap metal manages in about three days.
"No noise, no catching, no green wrist. I have worn it every day since October."
I could do it up myself in a motel bathroom mirror
Away from home you have not got anybody to hand and half the time you have not got decent light either. Cord bracelets usually mean a knot you are meant to tie one-handed, and I gave up on those years ago. This has a proper lobster clasp on a short extender chain, so it fastens in a second, on my own, in bad light, standing in a bathroom the size of a wardrobe at Hervey Bay. The chain gives three or four links of adjustment too, which matters more than you would think when your hands swell up in the heat.
"Fastens in seconds and actually fits my small wrist, which almost nothing does."
It is in every photograph from the whole six weeks
I did not notice this until we were home and I was going through them. There are four hundred photographs from that trip and my wrist is in a good many of them, and the same three birds are there in all of them, from the first morning in the Hunter to the last one on the way down. There is something about that I did not expect to like as much as I do. My daughters are both interstate and I sent a few of the photos on, and my youngest wrote back asking whether the three birds were us. They were. I had never said so.
"My daughter took one look at a photo and said 'that's us three'. I had not said a word."
One honest note before the price
Since I have just spent six paragraphs telling you it survived a trip, let me be clear about what it will not survive. This is not fine jewellery. It is leather and a silver-toned charm, not sterling. Take it off before you swim and before you shower, the way you would with any leather, and do not leave it sitting in a wet bathroom. Do that and it will go a nicer colour and last you. Leave it on in the pool at Coffs and you will be disappointed, and it will be your own doing.
What stayed in the roll, against what was on my wrist
The jewellery roll came home unopened. When I finally unzipped it in the laundry I worked out why, and it was the same five reasons for every single thing in there.
- Too dear to stop thinking about while you are away
- Metal that clinks in the car and catches on the belt
- A green mark on your wrist by day three in the heat
- Clasps you cannot manage without help or good light
- Only goes with the outfits you did not end up wearing
- Under forty dollars, so losing it is an afternoon's annoyance
- Soft double leather, silent in the car and at the table
- No mark, no snagging, six weeks of Queensland sun
- A lobster clasp you fasten one-handed in bad light
- Brown and silver, so it went with everything I had
About the price
It is $39.99, down from $79.99, and on a trip that price stops being about jewellery at all. It is about how much you are prepared to worry. The pendant in that roll is worth enough that I would have spent six weeks checking on it. This one I did not think about once, which is the entire point of going away.
Cute Home say the sale pricing comes from selling direct with no middleman taking a cut. That is their arithmetic and I cannot check it. Mine is that forty-one days of wearing it works out at under a dollar a day, and it is still on my wrist now, months after we got home.
If you have a trip coming up and a jewellery roll you already know you will not open, take one thing instead. This is the one I would put on your wrist myself.
— Nancy
VINTAGE BIRD ROPE BRACELET
- Three-bird charm in a vintage silver tone
- Soft double leather cord, silent in the car and at the table
- Light enough that you forget you have it on
- Lobster clasp with extender chain, fastens one-handed
- Brown and silver, so it suits everything you packed
- Free Australia-wide delivery with tracking
- 30-day money back guarantee · Afterpay available
About the writer. Nancy Brooks lives in Melbourne, VIC. She writes occasionally about the small things she has actually kept using. She is not affiliated with Cute Home beyond being a customer.
This page is an advertisement for Cute Home. Nancy's letter is shared with her permission. Cute Home · An Australian start-up from Melbourne · Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back guarantee.