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Mood rings! Thinking about them is a blast to the past, evoking memories of a time of mini skirts, platform shoes, and big hair.

Did you ever wonder how mood rings work? It seems like magic. But a little research reveals that the explanation is simple. The rings change color in response to changes in the body temperature of the people wearing them.

That thing that looks like a stone in middle of the ring? It's not a stone at all. It's really a shell made of glass (or of some other clear protective material) that holds a special type of liquid crystals. The crystals, called thermotropic crystals, twist around when the temperature changes. When they twist, they reflect different wavelengths of light. Light that is reflected in different ways appears, to our eyes, to be different colors.

Because the ring touches the finger, the heat that the crystals react to is the heat coming from the wearer's finger. The temperature of our fingers change as our emotion change. This is because when we are stressed, blood flows away from the surface of the body toward the internal organs. In general, being nervous, scared, or stressed out will cause the blood to move away from the body's surface, which will make your fingers colder.. On the other hand (no pun intended!), when you are feeling calm, relaxed, happy, loving, and/or passionate, your blood will tend to flow to the outer part of your body. That will make your fingers warmer. A mood ring will react to these changes in finger temperature, and you will see that reaction as a change in color.

There are other things besides mood changes that can affect finger temperature. Also, mood rings made by different manufacturers may show different colors. So gauging moods by looking at mood rings is not a precise science. Still, it's a lot of fun.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia: The granddaughter of the original inventor of the mood ring recently wore one as a good luck charm when she appeared on the quiz show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Its good-luck charm powers must not have worked, because she lost by a large margin. But if there were a show called "Are You Wearing Jewelry That is a Great Conversation Piece and a Wonderful Evoker of Nostalgia?" she could have been a champion.

For more information, see:

About.com:chemistry "How Do Mood Rings Work?" by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/ chemistryfaqs/f/moodring.htm

Learn more about this author, May Monten.
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