How to Measure Your Wrist for the Right Bracelet Size

Bracelets are great accessories to add to your collection. Its origin can be traced way back to 40,000 BP. The word bracelet is from the Greek word “brachile” meaning “of the arm”. Materials used in ancient bracelets are bones, stones, animal teeth and wood. Bracelets were believed to serve religious and spiritual interest in some cultures, while a class symbol for others.

A very famous bracelet in history is the Scarab Bracelet which is one of the most renowned symbols of ancient Egypt. The scarab bracelet represented rebirth and restoration for the Egyptians.

The trick with having the perfect bracelet is its fit, making sure it’s loose enough to move and dangle nicely on top of your hand while tight enough for it not to fall off your hand. Ordering bracelets most especially online is much easier if you have the right wrist size. So we’ve come up with a blog that has easy instructions on how to measure your wrist properly and ensure a great fitting bracelet.

For a regular chain bracelet or bracelets with locks

1. You’ll need any of these three to measure your wrist. Prepare a flexible measuring tape, a string, or a strip of paper enough to go around your wrist.
2. Using your measuring tool, measure just above your wrist bone by wrapping the measuring tape or paper around it. See sample picture below:
   Some suggest that, for charm bracelets or other types of bracelets that you want draping across the top of your hand, measure the point where your wrist meets your hand and add approximately a half inch allowance to that.
3. Mark or take note of the part where your measuring tool overlaps. If you’re using a measuring tape, simply add between ¼ inch and 1 inch depending on how tight you like your bracelet to be. Usually people add half an inch (½ inch) to their actual wrist size for a comfortable fit.
4. To get your wrist measurement if you’re using a strip of paper or string, simply lay it flat on a surface and measure the length from your starting point to the end mark you’ve made, and then add to that measurement your desired inch allowance.

I suggest that if this is your first time buying bracelets online, after getting your measurement (using the tape measure or strip of paper) try to experiment on various inch allowances and move it around and up and down along your wrist to ensure you’re comfortable. You can do this by wrapping the measured strip of paper or string around your wrist and taping/joining the edges and see if you’re comfortable.

For bangles

Bangles are rigid, don’t have openings and need to slip through or over the hand onto the wrist. Having bangles that are too large is very uncomfortable with the fear of the bangles falling off your hand while having it too small would be torture whenever you try to slip it on or off your wrist. But there are basically two kinds of bangles, an adjustable one and the fixed size bangle.

For adjustable bangles, you can simply do the regular bracelet measurement stated above. With adjustable bangles, you wouldn’t have to worry that they might slip off your hands so in general, it’s a good choice.

Bangles are measured or sized by their diameter in inches. If you have good fitting bangles already then you can simply measure the diameter of those to find your size, otherwise, especially for fixed size bangles, you’ll need a tape measure or a strip of paper for measuring and here’re what you’ll need to do:

1. Squash or squeeze your fingers together towards the centre and make it as narrow as possible. Another trick is to squash your fingers together and bring your thumb and your little/pinky finger together towards the centre or simply pretend that you slipping a bangle.
2. Wrap the measuring tape or strip of paper around the widest part of your squashed hand. As a tip, measure around the knuckles and use the knuckle of the thumb as a starting point, this area around the knuckles is the widest part. Pull the measuring tape or strip of paper just tight enough to pass around this widest part. See picture below for reference:
3. If you’re using a strip of paper, mark the part where it overlaps with a pen. Lay down the paper on a flat surface and measure it with a ruler from the starting point to the point of overlap. If it’s a tape measure then simply take note of the measurement. This measurement is the circumference of your hand.
4. Once you have the circumference, you have to get the diameter. Tape the ends together (starting point and the point of overlap) and measure across the widest point of the paper bracelet/circle making sure that you are not distorting the circle shape in any way and that is the diameter.

For those with thin wrists, you may want to try a different bangle sizing technique. This can be done by measuring the width of your closed fist from the top centre of one knuckle to the other. And then, select the closest bangle size to your measurement. Example: Small- 2 ¼”, Medium- 2 ½”, Large- 2 ¾”. See picture below on how to measure thin wrists for bangles:

Try to slip the paper or the tape measure back and forth to make sure it will fit in through your knuckles to your wrist easily.

Here’s a chart for easier reference for circumference to diameter conversion:

Bracelets certainly never go out of style so making sure that it fits just right and comfortably is essential. We at oNecklace hope that this guide to measuring your wrist will help you have a better bracelet buying experience.