Today I’ll be reviewing both the LOVE and XOXO links.  I figured I would do both of them at the same time because they are very similar in theme and close in size and were released pretty close to each other. When X first came out in November 2013, I believe that the LOVE double link was part of the initial release, and then XOXO came out close on it’s heels as part of the official holiday collection.

 

Here are the dimensions:

 

First Impression:

Both the LOVE and XOXO links measure just shy of one inch (15/16th of an inch to be exact, however this is negligible) or 25 mm. It seems strange to me that even though they are the same size, the XOXO link feels much lighter and even looks smaller to me when compared to the LOVE link. I think it’s because the XOXO has a weird twist in the last O that makes it look like an optical illusion and therefore makes the XOXO link look smaller. Is it just me?

Review:

My favorite of the two links by far is the LOVE because it only has a small twist to it. I find the more I’m doing these reviews, the more I’m realizing that I prefer links with not a lot of twist to them, I do like them, but I don’t LOVE them (ha ha pardon the play on words there :D).  Also when X released these links I liked them immediately because I had never seen anyone else use actual words or letters to make charms out of them. This is why I was drawn to this line instantly, X is different, edgy, modern, and innovative!

Here they are photographed in sequential order as I turned them from one side to another, you can see how the links look from the side and then from the top:

 

 

Here they are next to the Lover’s Bond of course:

 

As always I like to use the Lover’s Bond as a standard to all other links since I like the size of it and I use it to compare it to other double links.

You can see once again how the Lover’s Bond works well as a good center or focal point of a bracelet, and I like to use the LOVE and the XOXO as good symmetrical compliments. Here they are incorporated into a bracelet:

 

In conclusion:

I almost always have nothing negative to say about X, I just adore the concept as a whole and just love everything they make. As I mentioned before, I like their innovativeness in using whole words as links or charms, and I understand that because of this, some of these links must twist in order to accommodate the movement of a bracelet, but I kind of think the twist on the XOXO is a bit exaggerated. I still like it, but my favorite is still the LOVE link. That being said, I wonder why the XOXO and the LOVE have such a big price difference. The XOXO retails at $56 while the LOVE retails at $72. Maybe there is a difference between them after all? I mentioned before that I felt like the XOXO was a bit smaller and felt lighter, perhaps there is a weight difference after all? Maybe in the future I will purchase a scale and start weighing the links, we’ll see. In the meantime, I hope this post was helpful to all you jewelry fiends who were pondering whether to take the leap and buy either one of these links. Until next time!