It is the metal. Not the gold or the silver or the platinum we are buying, it is all the other garbage that gets mixed in with it that we're not told about.
Fine Jewelry is sold as being precious. It has legally required hallmarks inside that tell of the purity of the metal you are buying. For example, if you purchase a wedding ring made of white gold and it is stamped inside 14K, it means 58.5% of the ring is gold. That means a whopping 41.5% of the rest of the ring is a complete mystery!
It is those other metals that get mixed in that are toxic. Most commonly, especially for white gold, is nickel. Nickel is carcinogenic. What does that mean? It causes cancer. Then it blocks your bodies immune system so you can't fight the cancer.
But the nickel is in the ring, it can't hurt me right? Wrong. Nickel easily breaks down when it is exposed to chlorinates. Chlorinates are found everywhere; dish soap, pools, hot tubs, tooth paste, food, even our tap water is saturated in chlorine! When that chlorine touches jewelry with nickel, it starts to dissolve the nickel which then gets absorbed into the skin.
Nickel isn't the only danger. Cadmium and lead are commonly found in jewelry as both alloys and joining materials used in repairs. Lead is very toxic, and over time leads to lead poisoning in adults, brain damage in children. However, it is the cute cuddly of the two. Cadmium is the most toxic of all the heavy metals. It is very toxic in even the smallest of doses, kills with larger doses, and there is no effective treatment for cadmium poisoning. The metal is seventh on the CDC's most hazardous substances list.
Jewelry is often toxic. The best way to prevent being poisoned by your jewelry is to not have toxic materials in your jewelry in the first place. If a jeweler says that those materials are just what there is, don't believe them, there are alternatives! Jewelers don't work with these alternatives because they are more difficult, more expensive or they just don't know or care. At the Abbey, toxin free jewelry is what we do.
If you are conscious about your health and the health of the ones you love, be conscious of the jewelry you wear and the jewelry you give.
Stay tuned to learn more about toxic jewelry and it's affects.
With opening eyes,
Justinder
Case in point, a good friend of mine Shauna Hackney from gildedlady.com brought me a pretty vintage inspired necklace she had picked up as a quick accessory from Target to repair. One look at it and I could tell it was made of a base metal. She had left the tag on and I was shocked that it read: Not intended for children under the age of 14. Made in China. This is the legal disclaimer required to put on for cadmium and lead containing jewelry from China, that it cannot be worn by children under 14. So what, it's okay for 15 year olds and adults to wear toxic metals?
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