How to Purchase the Best Metal Jewelry for Your Sensitive Skin
Some of you may have experienced metal allergies when wearing certain jewelry that have metal components. You simply wear the jewelry piece for a few minutes or hours, and then suddenly, you experience rashes, blisters, itchiness, and other meddlesome reactions. Sometimes, the affected area will have severe infections and move on to other skin areas. Learn how to choose the right kind of metal jewelry for your sensitive/allergic skin.
The Main Culprit
Before anything else, you need to know what the main culprit is so that you can easily identify jewelry you’re not supposed to wear. People draw to conclusions that their allergies can be triggered by brass, silver, and gold, but truth be told, these metals rarely cause skin reactions.
You see, the most common metal that causes allergic reactions is none other than nickel. A lot of gold, silver, and brass pieces are bonded with nickel, especially with those that have low gold, silver, and brass content. Cobalt and copper are also allergy culprits.
Purchasing the Non-Allergy Causing Jewelry
The keyword here is “hypoallergenic”. In case you didn’t know, hypoallergenic means that you will expect lesser or possibly no allergic reactions from the item/product. Take note of the word “lesser”, this means you don’t expect the item to actually cause zero allergic reactions, although it may be possible to actually have no allergic reactions from the item depending on your skin’s reaction.
The best thing you can do is to test out the “hypoallergenic” jewelry for a few weeks and observe if it causes any reactions. Generally, you need to find metal jewelry that are pure or “near” pure since they contain less allergy-causing metals like copper, nickel, cobalt,
Silver: You might have noticed Sterling silver from shops; this is actually a great option for you since it’s actually composed of 92.5% of silver. For foolproof hypoallergenic silver, find something that has Argentium since it’s a far safer metal for your sensitive skin.
Gold: Gold that has 14 karats and above is a safe bet for your allergic dilemma since they contain little or no metal allergens. Cheap gold pieces are mostly mixed with nickel.
Platinum: An expensive option but it’s truly a hypoallergenic metal. You can ask your trusted jewelry seller for other options, and inquire about hypoallergenic jewelry.