I’m hopeful they live up to the “permanent” part of their name! I bought a little of many colors of these galvanized beads from Toho. I made a sample for a ring, both to see how the matte and shiny finishes interplay, and to test the durability — I’m going to be sporting a pink and green ring for a while, most of the time.

Here it is flat first. I don’t like the shiny beads next to shiny beads of a different color — maybe it would be better if there was a stronger value contrast between the pink and the green, but it just looks shiny. You don’t see the color as much. That doesn’t happen with the two matte colors next to each other; that works well. I also like the matte and shiny of the same color next to each other. These colors are rose (553) and yellow gold (559), though the yellow gold looks more chartreuse to me.

Here’s the finished ring. The colors are more true in this photograph than the flat band above.