Silver keychain with black striped rhinestone cat

Turn it over first: every setting is cut as a heart

Nobody buys a charm for its back, which is exactly why this one is worth starting with. The reverse is smooth bright metal, and the underside of each setting reads as a small heart, the whole lot scattered over the skull, the spine and the flanks. Hung from a bunch of keys, the piece turns constantly, so that second face is on show about as often as the first. The fittings stay plain against it: a jump ring, a swivel, a lobster clasp and a flat split ring.

A standing cat keyring of 5 cm, tail lifted into a ring

Turned the right way round, the cat stands squared on four paws, three quarters towards you, as though it had halted between two strides. The tail settles the matter: it loops back on itself into an open ring, banded in black and bright metal the whole way round. The paws left in plain metal carry no stones, and that plain finish breaks up a body otherwise set edge to edge.

Where the colour actually sits

Count the coloured parts and there are only three. Two black enamel ears stand up either side of the head, two round eyes repeat the same shade below them, and one red stroke marks the mouth. Everything else, muzzle included, keeps its pavé. It is a blunt way of building a face, and it works at distance: on a bag crossing a room you read the black before you read anything else.

What the photographs confirm

An easy thing to hand over, and where it ends up

Animal charms make straightforward presents: no size to get right, no shade to match, nothing to ask beforehand. This one has the extra advantage of being legible at a glance, which a plain pavé rarely is. It also rarely stays on the keys for long. A zip pull or a handle is where charms of this kind tend to settle, which suits anyone who already owns a bag with something hanging off it. That is the honest way to choose one: not by how it looks in the hand but by how it reads hanging. The rest of the aisle of figures meant to be clipped on is worth running through the same test.