Good and bad jewellery

After learning all about cadmium jewellery, I started thinking about why some jewellery makes your skin turn green. After a little digging I learned that the green reaction on your skin from a piece of jewellery is caused by a chemical reaction due to the combination of the metal in the jewellery and the acids in your skin. The most common culprit is copper.

To avoid discolouring of skin, experts say to stick to stainless steel, platinum and rhodium-plated jewellery.

What about allergic reactions? Some people break out into a rash from certain jewellery, this is due to an allergy to nickel. Nickel is often the base metal for a number of jewellery, whether it’s fashion or fine. The only metals that are known not to contain nickel are stainless steel, 18- or 24- carat gold, sterling silver, and pure platinum.

With all this new information under my belt, I went running to our designers to ask them what types of metals our jewellery contains.

I was proud to learn that I work for a company that does not cut corners and has its customers’ best interest at heart.

Here is what I learned:

• Armoir does not use any copper in any of its jewellery, thus eliminating the chance of skin discolouration = no green skin.

• Armoir only uses nickel on plating of some chains and clasps, but has a number of pieces that doesn’t contain nickel at all which allows customers with nickel allergies other options that don’t require breaking the bank.