Choosing Metal When Jewellery Irritates Your Skin

This question arrives regularly, and the useful first step is separating two problems that look similar and are not. One is about chemistry on the surface of your skin; the other is about your skin itself.

Problem one: a mark that washes off

A green or greyish line under a ring, which comes off with soap and leaves nothing behind.

This is copper in the alloy reacting with moisture and salts in sweat to form copper salts, which transfer to skin. It is cosmetic and harmless. Pure gold and pure silver are too soft for jewellery, so both are alloyed — and copper is the most common alloying metal.

It is more likely with lower-karat gold, with sterling silver, and especially with rose gold, whose colour comes from a deliberately higher copper content. It is also affected by your own chemistry, which is why it can start after years with the same ring.

Problem two: an actual skin reaction

Redness, itching, small bumps or a rash that does not wash away and takes time to settle after the piece is removed.

This is a skin response rather than a stain. Nickel is the metal most commonly associated with contact allergy, and it appears in some white metal alloys and frequently in the base metal beneath plating. Once plating wears through — typically at the back of a shank, where contact is constant — the base metal meets skin directly.

We are a workshop rather than a clinic, so the honest advice is limited and clear: if you have persistent redness, itching or a rash, see a doctor or a dermatologist. They can establish what is actually happening. What we can usefully tell you is exactly what a piece is made of, so you have accurate information to work with.

Metals, roughly ordered by how often they cause problems

Metal	Notes
Platinum	Typically 95% pure, very little alloy. The least problematic option.
18K gold	75% gold, so a quarter alloy. Better than lower karats.
14K gold	58.3% gold. Fine for most people; more alloy present.
White gold	Depends entirely on the alloy — palladium-based versions are nickel-free; ask.
925 sterling silver	Usually copper-alloyed; more likely to stain than to irritate.
Plated base metal	The most common source of trouble, for the reason above.

The white gold question specifically

Worth its own note, because white gold is not one material.

White gold is yellow gold alloyed with white metals to lighten it, and the alloy varies by manufacturer. Some formulations use nickel; others use palladium, which is nickel-free. Most white gold is also rhodium-plated, which puts an inert layer between the alloy and your skin — but that plating wears and needs redoing every year or two, and when it does, the alloy underneath is exposed.

So if nickel is a known issue for you, ask two questions: is the alloy nickel-free, and is it rhodium plated. A nickel-free alloy solves the problem permanently; rhodium plating defers it.

Practical steps that help either problem

1. Keep the piece dry. Both staining and irritation need moisture. Remove rings before washing up and dry your hands properly.
2. Clean under the piece, not just on top. Soap and lotion trapped between metal and skin is the usual culprit — sometimes the reaction is to residue rather than to metal at all.
3. Take rings off for the gym and for sleep. Sustained sweat contact is the worst case.
4. Rotate pieces. Constant contact in one spot is harder on skin than intermittent wear.
5. Get the metal identified. If you do not know what a piece is, a jeweller can test it in minutes. Guessing is not a plan.

What we can and cannot help with

We can tell you the exact alloy of anything we make, whether it contains nickel, whether it is plated, and we can build in a metal you have already established works for you. That is genuinely useful and it is where a workshop can help.

We cannot tell you why your skin is reacting, and we would be wrong to try. That is a question for a doctor, and it is worth asking properly rather than working through metals by trial and error.

Frequently asked questions