The Carrotbox - a site about rings

June 18, 2007 5:54 PM

Grass rings, lace rings, rock rings, bunny rings...The Carrotbox has month after month of posts about odd and unusual rings. Alice is allergic to metal so focuses in her own collection on "glass, lucite, resin, plastic, jade, wood, bakelite and even stone — anything, as long as it's not metal!" She even provides a timeline of plastic history. [via FunForever]
posted by mediareport (19 comments total)

NSFW.

First!
posted by lalochezia at 6:16 PM on June 18, 2007

The Carrotbox also has a shop, from which I've bought beautiful glass and jade bands. My girlfriend loves them, the prices were reasonable and Alice was very friendly, went out of her way to quickly send the rings across an ocean, and even added free rings (very pretty, and at the perfect size) when we re-ordered.

So do explore the shop, because Alice is awesome.
posted by stereo at 6:24 PM on June 18, 2007

grass rings, lace rings, rock rings, cock rings...dr. seuss would be proud
posted by geos at 6:49 PM on June 18, 2007

Wow. This is cool. I've recently started accumulating rings, and it's very addictive. Here's a site with an exhibition of rings called 200 rings, at the Velvet da Vinci gallery.
posted by dhruva at 7:20 PM on June 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Check this out. A silver talon ring!
posted by dhruva at 7:22 PM on June 18, 2007

Damn, dhruva, that exhibit is wonderful. Some really bizarre and beautiful stuff.
posted by mediareport at 7:58 PM on June 18, 2007

Delightful post mediareport.

The link of the "Grass rings" has some extraordinary-strange-fun jewelry and art.

Origami ring. Dollar bill ring and more. Elephant hair ring. Human hair ring. Walrus ivory ring. Kimono fabric rings. Teen kitsch rings.
posted by nickyskye at 8:20 PM on June 18, 2007

Oh, you mean finger rings... I was thinking of more general kinds of rings, like bathtub rings, planetary rings, and something I haven't seen in many years; a "fairy" ring.

I used to see fairy rings on people's lawns all the time growing up in Montana. What happened to them? Did effective fungicides become ubiquitous?

It's one of things you just don't see on yards anymore, like water filled milk jugs, or white dog feces...
posted by Tube at 8:27 PM on June 18, 2007

Someone just alerted me to this post and though I normally keep silent, I couldn't not thank stereo for his very kind words. And thank you as well, mediareport!
posted by (alice) at 9:55 PM on June 18, 2007

Wait, she's "allergic to metal"? All metal? I have some problems believing that. How the hell are you allergic to titanium, platinum, or gold?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:06 PM on June 18, 2007

What a delightful post, and Alice is a member? How cool is that? Fabulous collections. Dhruva and nickyskye, good additions.

I can't wait to share Carrotbox with my niece - she has never been able to wear jewelry with metal of any kind - and yes, Joakim Ziegler, in her case that includes titanium and gold. She breaks out in horrible itchy rashes. Jewelry isn't her only problem - she has to avoid metallic zippers and buttons that will come in contact with her skin.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:34 AM on June 19, 2007

I'm with Joakim here. I have never heard of such an intense allergy.
posted by King Bee at 3:54 AM on June 19, 2007

She's metallurgic?
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:36 AM on June 19, 2007

How the hell are you allergic to titanium, platinum, or gold?

Well, now you have *two* examples, Joakim. Platinum allergies are rare, but present enough that doctors have to worry about them when using platinum-based drugs in cancer treatment. Titanium allergies are also rare, but this Yahoo Answers page links to a number of medical abstracts about it, and this page from a company that makes a test for metal allergies.
posted by mediareport at 4:45 AM on June 19, 2007

And it's neat that Alice is an old-school member here. You're welcome, Alice. You have a marvelous blog!
posted by mediareport at 4:48 AM on June 19, 2007

This is wonderful. My daughter also has metal allergies - she can wear sterling or 14k gold and I guess platinum or titanium, although we've never tried, but things like belt buckles, the zippers and buttons on jeans and the backs of watches make her break out in a horrible rash as well. It sucks and makes this an even better find for us!
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:51 AM on June 19, 2007

These are very cool. Great job, Alice!
posted by MythMaker at 8:48 AM on June 19, 2007

mediareport: I should have said "How the hell are you allergic to titanium, platinum, and gold"? As you mentioned, both platinum and titanium allergies are extremely rare (and titanium allergies seem to only manifest in people who are chronically exposed to it through having titanium implants).

Even so, in this case, someone's supposed to not only have those two rare allergies at the same time, but a bunch of others as well?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:00 PM on June 19, 2007

Doesn't seem any more bizarre to me than the concept of allergies in general, Joakim. They're a strange sort of affliction, that's for sure - one we don't understand a lot of things about.

That said, I've always heard it's more the nickel used in plating gold that most folks are allergic to. Haven't checked that out, though.
posted by mediareport at 9:49 PM on June 19, 2007