Gold Body Jewelry – Is It Really Gold?
Gold body jewelry and gold belly button rings are increasingly popular women's jewelry accessories. Gold body jewelry in particular is highly desirable, symbolizing abundance and prosperity. Before you purchase gold body jewerly or gold belly button rings, make sure you know how to choose and what to look for.
How do you know your gold body jewelry is really gold? It's worth spending a little time to understand how you can make sure your gold body jewelry is pure, and not a substandard piece.
With body jewelry, you should look for 18 karat gold. The reason 18 karat is recommended for new piercings is there's a higher chance the jewelry will be accepted by the body. When body jewelry isn't true gold or the karat level advertised, allergies may result and you'll need to remove the body jewelry.
Usually this occurs because the gold used for body jewelry is an alloy that contains other metals in addition to gold. Often, gold body jewelry is only plated with gold; such jewelry should never be used in piercings even if the piercing is healed.
After the polish goes away, the allergic risk is high, especially if the other metal used is nickel. Nickel is the most common metal used for body jewelry, particularly for white gold belly button rings. The cheaper the body jewelry, the more unlikely it has a high level of gold purity.
It's important to check what other metals are present in your gold body jewelry. The lower the karat level in your body jewelry, the higher the content of metals like copper, zinc, and nickel. In fact, other metals are almost always used to formulate body jewelry because gold itself is so soft and needs other metals to form jewelry.
To avoid potential body jewelry allergic reaction, always choose 18 karat gold body jewelry. Most body jewelry you'll see on the market is 14 karat gold, but 18k gold is also readily available. The less gold content, the less expensive. The downside, of course, is the high chance you'll have to return or even discard the body jewelry.
Consider these factors when buying gold body jewelry:
1. Buy jewelry from a store with a quality assurance and testing program. These stores test their own jewelry for purity.
2. Look for a license stamped on the body jewelry if a trademark or logo is present, i.e. the trademark for a large company. If a trademark or logo is on your body jewelry but there is no license stamped on the back, your body jewelry is suspect in quality.
3. Have your body jewelry tested for purity at an independent lab or dealer if the quality is in question.
4. Under a jewelers scope, take a good look at the craftmanship. Are there rough edges? Frays? Imperfections?
Lastly, you should understand gold terminology before you invest in body jewelry, especially belly button rings. 24k gold is pure gold, 18k gold is 75% pure, 14k gold is 58.3% pure. 10k gold is the lowest purity allowed to be labeled gold, at 41.7% purity.
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