7 Essential Tips to Help Prevent Skin Allergies From Jewelry

Jewelry is one of the most prized possessions almost everyone owns. It’s that item that makes you feel special and increases your confidence. 

It adds that extra effect to your look. But what do you do when your favorite earrings, rings, or bracelets leave rashes on your skin? If you notice rashes on your skin after wearing a particular piece of jewelry, you have a jewelry allergy. 

Should you stop wearing your favorite jewelry? No need to fret; you can overcome jewelry allergy without stopping to wear your favorite jewelry.

This article provides seven essential tips to help prevent skin allergies from jewelry.

What Is a Jewelry Allergy?

A jewelry allergy is an irritation or reaction when your skin is exposed to a particular jewelry set. This allergy can come in the form of redness, painful sensitivity, itchiness, rashes, or greenish-blue marks on your skin. 

An allergic reaction to metal might resemble an allergy to poison ivy, but the rash will manifest exactly where the jewelry made contact with the skin.

7 Essential Tips to Help Prevent Skin Allergies From Jewelry

1. Clear Nail Polish

Coating your jewelry with clear nail polish might not be the most appropriate option, but it will help prevent skin allergies whenever you put on any jewelry. You could coat your earrings with clear nail polish to protect your skin from rashes. 

This hack is not only limited to earrings. You could also paint the interiors of your women’s or mens wedding bands, bracelets, or necklaces, but ensure to be careful.

2. Frequently Clean Your Jewelry

Try to clean your jewelry frequently, especially the ones you wear often. It’s expected to have skin irritation whenever you put on cheap jewelry, but when you get these reactions from high-quality jewelry, then there’s a chance your jewelry might have contacted a foreign element, which is causing the rashes or painful sensitivity.

An easy way to solve this is to take a piece of clothing and dab it into the water to clean the jewelry, then let it dry or simply take it to a professional jewelry cleaner.

3. Avoid Nickel

Nickel is one of the main materials that cause skin allergies. Nickel is a common cause of contact dermatitis. This is an allergic reaction which causes itchiness whenever your skin comes in contact with jewelry made with nickel.

If you have contact dermatitis, it’s best to treat it and avoid any jewelry made of nickel because the rashes or itchiness might occur again after treatment. Try to get jewelry that contains less nickel. 

It’s true that buying jewelry which contains less nickel is more expensive, but if you invest in this type of jewlery, you’ll be free from skin allergies and your jewelry will also last longer.

4. Wear Hypoallergenic Jewelry

If your skin reacts to jewelry, you could opt for hypoallergenic jewelry. Hypoallergenic jewelry is created from gold, stainless steel, titanium and niobium. Jewelry made from this type of material contains little to no irritating alloys.

5. Wear High-Quality Gold 

Do you know that the higher the gold karat, the lower the alloy content? So if you invest in jewelry with higher karat, you are less likely to have skin reactions. This option might be quite expensive, but you’re sure to be free from skin irritation.

6. Recreate Your Jewelry 

Have you tried the nail polish option and still getting rashes or itchiness? Then you can try to recreate the jewelry. 

If the particular jewelry causing this reaction is one of your beloved possessions gifted to you by a special someone, and you don’t want to do away with it, then you can recreate it.

Simply take the jewelry to a jewelry maker and ask them to recreate it with another material. This option can also be expensive, but if you feel the jewelry means a lot to you, you can try it. In the end, you get new jewelry and also be free from skin allergies.

7. Keep Your Jewelry Dry 

Keep the place where you will wear your jewelry dry to avoid rashing. Bracelets, for example, tend to scratch the skin when the wrists aren’t entirely dry. 

Bacteria begin to colonize, an odor emerges, and skin irritation quickly follows. Wipe away any residual water from your wrist to avoid rashes. 

If you’re doing something strenuous, take off your jewelry so that sweat and metals don’t react unfavorably.

What Are the Symptoms of a Jewelry Allergy?

An allergic reaction to metal resembles a poison ivy allergy. You will notice redness, pimples, and blisters, as well as itching and irritation. 

It may appear to be other allergies, but the spot of the reactions tells that it’s due to the jewelry. A jewelry allergy causes a rash to emerge precisely where the item contacts the skin. 

If you’re allergic to a ring, removing it will result in a rash ring. If you’re allergic to a necklace, you’ll be able to trace a rash line to where the necklace made contact with your skin.

Nickel, cobalt, and mercury are among the most frequent allergies resulting in rashes, itching, and inflamed red skin. When skin that has developed a sensitivity to (or allergy to) a chemical comes into touch with a piece of jewelry made with nickel or cobalt, allergic contact dermatitis results. 

After exposure, symptoms may take up to 72 hours or more to manifest, generally in nickel contact. Rarely an acute allergy to nickel will appear as a hive-like response or contact urticaria at the point of contact with the nickel-containing object.

Irritant contact dermatitis is a different kind of contact dermatitis that develops when the skin is regularly exposed to a mild irritant from detergents. In cases of extreme exposure, the symptoms of this kind of cumulative irritating contact dermatitis might appear immediately. 

Generally, jewelry allergies symptoms include;

• Rash or bumps on the skin

• Itching, which may be severe

• Redness or changes in skin color

• Dry patches of skin that may resemble a burn

• Blisters and draining fluid in severe cases

Conclusion

Jewelry remains one of the common fashion items almost everyone loves to wear as it makes one feel elegant and fulfilled. But sometimes these items can cause skin irritations, and to solve this problem, it’s advisable to follow one of the tips shared in this article.