Birth of The Larimar Shop Collections

The story behind our Collections

We confess that we are deeply in love with our share of the eastern side of the Hispaniola Island, the Dominican Republic, its land, mountains, rivers, beaches, flora and fauna, and the authenticity of our people.

When we started knowing our unique Larimar stone, which mimics our Caribbean blue sea waters and clear blue sky, also frequently adorned with white clouds, so well, we fell in love with this Dominican national stone and decided to share this beauty, in our Dominican style, with the world!

The reasons that encouraged us to move forward with our Larimar project was the fact that our Larimar stone is offered many times abroad, omitting the truth that this stone is found and mined only in the Dominican Republic and at the same time the publicity of some well known Larimar designers/vendors, telling that they get the best quality of Larimar so that the low grade quality is left in the Dominican Republic for us to use! Also they have underestimated the Dominican craftsmanship and creativity to expose the beauty of Larimar with jewelry that makes it shine!

Contrary to the jewelry artisans, for example, of Mexico, Indonesia, India who learned their skills through many, many generations, our Dominican jewelry artisans hopped into this art approx. end of the sixties, and in the eighties a jewelry school was established in the city of  Puerto Plata, with the aid of the Dominican Development Agency, “Fundacion Dominicana de Desarrollo”, as well as the efforts made by Miguel Mendez (the rediscoverer of the Larimar stone and who named it ) to prepare  jewelers and traders of this unique stone. Nowadays there are several schools and projects to teach jewelry art, which has resulted in better prepared and skilled jewelry artisans. During the visit last year of our actual Dominican president Danilo Medina to the Larimar mines, it was decided to give the Larimar miners and artisans financial and technical assistance to improve their work 

In view of the above exposure, we decided to create our own Larimar collection to make clear that we count with excellent craftsmanship and creative jewelry artisans who can design and make wonderful pieces to display the uniqueness of our Larimar stone and please the different preferences!

To honor the regions and surroundings of the mountain range Bahoruco in the Province of Barahona, where the Larimar stone is mined, we have decided to use the names of the different towns and places therein.

MENA Collection, named after Mena town, located in the province of Bahoruco (or Baoruco), southwest of the Province of Barahona!

The MENA Collection was created to obtain a fresh and modern appearance to exalt the beauty of the blue Larimar stone in stylish 925 silver settings!

The MENA pendant, MENA earrings and MENA bracelet will add a “something” special, a delightful touch to women’s look!

UVILLA Collection, named after Uvilla town, located in the province of Bahoruco (or Baoruco), southwest of the province of Barahona

The UVILLA Collection is an exquisite, elegant design that gives a flash of blue bling to those women who love to wear eye-catching pieces to enhance their femininity!

We are also creating within this collection a variety of UVILLA pendants, necklaces, earrings, rings and bracelets to allow our customers to acquire their UVILLA piece with more or less Larimar stones!

MONSERRAT Collection, named after Monserrat, a small town also located in the province of Bahoruco (or Baoruco), southwest of the province of Barahona

The MONSERRAT Collection aims to give the Larimar beads its full glance, combined with Mother of Pearl, creating pristine designs for an appealing, natural touch to womens final outfit!

These collections are the beginning of a new challenge for our strive to place our Dominican Larimar jewelry in a higher position, showing the world that Dominican jewelry artisans and designers have learned the art of making stunning pieces, letting our national Larimar stone shine by its own!  

Discover the new thelarimarshop.com

Yes, we are beyond excited!

Desktop view

When we installed our virtual Larimar store The Larimar Shop a few years ago,  we were very excited, full of expectations, ready to fight the good battle to conquer customers from all over the world, with top quality Larimar stone and excellent Dominican craftsmanship,  good service loaded with tropical enthusiasm, efficient delivery time and more!!

From time to time we encountered some difficulty with our website, notwithstanding we did a lot of constant internet search to learn more about optimizing our The Larimar Shop site to make it an ideal place for every customer interested in our marvelous Larimar stone!  Through all our efforts during these few years  we understood that it was definitely necessary to make a new site contemplating all the desires of modern, active, updated customers!

Our hard and dedicated work has given birth to our radiant new The Larimar Shop site, which makes it easy and interesting for customers all over the world to find, select, buy that special Larimar jewel they were looking for or just fell in love with!

Tablet view

Here're some highlighted new features:

• More friendly webpage where you'll have a better view of all our handcrafted Larimar pieces.
• Now you can shop either from your Desktop or your Mobile device as our new website has been made mobile friendly for you to have the greatest experience when shopping with us.
• Now you can share all the items you love on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google + and much more, just choose!
• New options for creating your Whislist and give a hint to whoever you like!
• New filter that allows you to surf through all Larimar rings by sizes, now you can!
• Compare one item from another and select your best option!
• Want to see what's on trend check out our Tag tools and find out what's everybody craving for.

Subscribe to our Newsletter and don't miss the fun! We are now introducing our Weekly newsletter keeping all Larimar lovers updated with the latest arrivals, special offers, promotions and more!

Our main goal is to capture all those Larimar customers who are looking for genuine Larimar stone jewelry, with good craftsmanship, variety of designs, sizes, prices, traded by honest, transparent vendors, guaranteeing their purchase!

We invite you to share with us the experience of the new The Larimar Shop, a true Dominican shop with genuine Larimar stone in all its variety of blue and blue green shade, designed and handmade by local young artisans!

Los Haitises National Park

Los Haitises National Park, located on the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic is an ecological paradise. Here you can see secluded beaches, mangrove swamps, islets, and a multitude of caverns.These caverns are adorned with pictographs and petroglyphs. The culture(s) which created these artworks remain unidentified, some of them possibly predating the Taínos. A grand diversity of endemic flora and fauna are present in this park, and some of these islets are part of the birds sanctuary.

It is a protected virgin forest with little road access. The number of tourists allowed is limited, but since 2000 it has become a popular ecotourism attraction. Haitis (singular) means highland or mountain range in the Taino language, although the elevation of the park's hills ranges from 98 ft.

This protected area connects you with nature in any ways: from a spectacular boat ride through it’s breathtaking mangroves, exploration of the virgin tropical rainforest and caverns to a dip in a secluded beach right in the middle of Los Haitises National Park. 

Don't forget to include this experience when visiting our tropical paradise, the Dominican Republic.

Larimar Stone Grades and Quality

According to all scientific studies, Larimar is a type of pectolite, or a rock composed largely of pectolite, an acid silicate 

Larimar Slab

hydrate of calcium and sodium. Although pectolite is found in many locations, none have the unique volcanic blue coloration of Larimar. This blue color, distinct from that of other pectolites, is the result of copper substitution for calcium Larimar is of volcanic origin, etc.

This stone will appear in different blue, blue green colors and there are also some that almost have a green jade color, but it is still Larimar! You also have the natural pattern varities, between light and deep blue, light blue and green, some with inclusions, such as hematite or red dendrites, with white to gray squarish patches, there are uncountable beautiful patterns Every time the Larimar rough stone is cut into slices or slabs, you will discover a new stunning one or two sided piece, it is just amazing; one can never get enough of this stone which mimicks so well our Caribbean sea waters and sky!

The hardness of this stone is between 5 to 8 in Moh´s scale; its hardness depends also of the light or deep blue colors, the darker stone is harder!

Marbel Larimar Pendant

Larimar Bracelet

Only 10 percent of the Larimar stone is suitable for jewelry after it has been cut and polished! This is one of the factors that makes this stone expensive

Larimar Double Stone Earrings

There is no standard specification for the different Larimar grades and all Larimar jewelry producers and vendors will clasify the grades according to their knowledge. However, not everybody knows this stone very good, believe me!! Even the Dominican artisans who have been working with Larimar for many, many years can be cheated by the miners if they buy uncut rough Larimar stone. Nowadays the Dominican artisans prefer to buy the Larimar in slabs and still they might be cheated with some cracked slabs!!

Lately many rough Larimar Stones are being exported to China and India, good and not good qualities Larimar, but the chinese and indians will use everything in order not to lose money!

For example: There is a Larimar Stone with an unstable blue color, which will change of color after mined because of lack of particular humidity and temperatur present in the área where it was found! Only if you are a connoisseur you will notice the difference of this Larimar Stone, which color will fade in short time due to lack of the humidity and temperature it needs.

Another data, most probably unknown, is that a transparent Larimar piece, very scarce indeed, belongs to gem quality! Many people ignore this, which is a pity because these pieces are rare, different and beautiful!

In order to secure good quality Larimar the Dominican artisans are now standing next to the pits waiting for the miners to appear with the Larimar stones they were able to find and they negotiate the price right there according, to the quality of the stone 

Marbel Larimar Pendant

It is important to avoid long sun exposure, salt water and chemicals to maintain the good quality of the Larimar Stone!

A Larimar stone which after years has kept its genuine color and/or became more blue, because of its location (cold or humid place), is a good quality Larimar no matter if it is deep or light blue, you did a good purchase!

A Closer Look at Larimar Jewelry Workshops in the D.R.

Larimar Ring

In our country, the Dominican Republic, the only place in the whole world, so far, where the blue pectolite, named LARIMAR is mined, you will find a variety of small workshop formed by old and young artisans who handcraft Larimar rings, pendants, bracelets, as well as Larimar necklaces, also using different types of beads to obtain beautiful natural Larimar pieces.

Those workshops are all over the city of Santo Domingo and some have moved to small towns close to the Larimar mines where they can lower their production cost using less expensive workmanship and obtaining better prices and stone quality.

Larimar Earrrings

The designs of most Larimar bracelets and earrings are very simple and classic, mainly made with teardrop and oval shapes cabochons. One can find more variety in the Larimar rings and pendants, where more free form cabochons are used.

If the artisan wants to make the most of a Larimar slab, he will make only free form cabochons and cut the regular shapes from small stones.

Larimar Bracelet

You will also find the combination for example of Larimar bracelets and earrings with Dominican pink conch and amber. Only one or two artisans combine Larimar jewelry with mother of pearl.

Larimar Pendant

A few years ago many workshops used 14K gold to mount first quality Larimar stone, but nowadays, due to extremely high price of gold, they use mainly 925 silver, giving buyers the opportunity to have beautiful blue Larimar pendants, rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces for reasonable prices.

Larimar is a special semi-precious stone because it has a rich variety of deep blue, light blue and green blue colors like our Caribbean Sea and beaches, also with beautiful patterns making each piece unique.