Fashion -- Nickel Allergies

If you've ever gotten red itch bumps from wearing jewelry or from your watch, most likely you had an allergic reaction. And the most likely culprit is nickel. One in seven people have nickel allergies (formally known as "contact dermatitis"). This figure is likely an under-estimation since most men do not wear as much jewelry as most women. So aside from buying 24 karat gold everything and breaking the bank, what's a lady to do?

Courtesy of April Williams who is a jewelry designer and whose mother had nickel allergies, here are the options for nickel allergy sufferers who do not want to break the bank:

Stay away from:
-- White gold, which is an alloy of gold and white metals to produce it's white color. The most commonly used white metal is nickel
-- German silver or nickel silver, which isn't silver at all, but a combination of nickel, zinc, lead, and tin

Try these:
-- Yellow gold, April Williams suggests 14 karat or above
-- Sterling silver, 92.5% pure silver, “925” mark found on the jewelry, the rest 7.5% is usually copper
-- Fine silver, by definition 99.9% silver, but extremely soft and not durable
-- Platinum, usually 95% platinum and 5% of a secondary metal typically iridium, keep in mind that platinum is heavier than sterling silver
-- Titanium, both hypoallergenic and durable, it's also very light. However it's durability means that if it gets stuck on you (think jamming your finger in basketball or volleyball), it's not a soft metal and you'll have to get it surgically removed (think diamond saw)
-- Copper, usually pure and not mixed with nickel

Toss up (no general rule):
-- Stainless steel (wide range from industrial to surgical grade), 8-12% nickel, but for contact dermatitis to occur the cations of the nickel must leach out of the metal, so highly dependent on construction
-- Gold-plated, is a very thin layer covering which will wear off over time. Whatever is covered underneath the layer may cause a rash, so it's a gamble. Gold-filled means a much thicker layer of gold-plating.

If you do get a rash:
-- Over-the-counter 1% hydrocortisone at your local drugstore, stops the itching (and therefore scratching), speeds healing

Other places nickel lurks:
-- Jeans rivets: the best advice I've found and tried is taping the inside of your jeans right over the rivets. Clear scotch tape doesn't work and itches. Cloth tape, paper tape, or blue painters tape works well. You want a piece bigger than the rivets so you cover some of the jeans fabric as well so the tape will stick. You may not need to tape all of the rivets, just those that bother you. Remember you'll have to do this again after the jeans come out of the wash. Remember jean jackets have rivets too, but may not come in contact with your skin as much.