Roughly one person in eight reacts to nickel, and most of them check before buying. That makes ‘hypoallergenic’ a commercially valuable word — and it is not a regulated one, which is exactly why it is used so loosely.

Nickel is the issue, almost always

Contact dermatitis from jewellery is overwhelmingly a nickel reaction. Nickel is present in most stainless steels, in many white gold alloys, and in the base metal under a great deal of plated jewellery.

Plating over a nickel-bearing base delays the problem rather than solving it: once the plating wears through at a contact point, the wearer is in contact with nickel.

The two materials that reliably work

Implant-grade titanium is inert, extremely light and used for surgical implants. It is the right answer for freshly pierced ears, children and anyone with a known reaction.

316L surgical steel contains a small amount of nickel but bound in a way that releases negligibly, and it is fine for the large majority of sensitive wearers. It is considerably cheaper, and being clear about which one a product uses matters.

The clutch is the component everyone forgets

A titanium post with a standard nickel-bearing butterfly back is not a hypoallergenic pair. The clutch sits against the back of the earlobe for as long as the earring is worn.

Specify the complete finding — post, clutch, and any connecting components — in the same material. Ask your supplier to confirm the clutch specifically; the answer tells you a lot about the rest.

Sterling and gold, briefly

Sterling silver is 92.5 percent silver with the balance usually copper, and is generally well tolerated. Solid gold above about 14 karat is usually fine, though white gold alloys sometimes contain nickel.

Neither is as reliably safe as titanium for a known reactive wearer, and neither should be described as hypoallergenic without qualification.

What to print on the card

The material, specifically: ‘implant-grade titanium posts and clutches’ or ‘316L surgical steel, nickel free’. That is checkable and it is what a sensitive customer is actually looking for.

‘Hypoallergenic’ on its own increasingly reads as marketing. Naming the material reads as confidence.

What we do

Complete findings in one specified material, stated on the quote and printed on the card. If you are building a sensitive-skin range, tell us at the quote stage so it is specified from the start rather than substituted at the end.