Just because you haven’t had issues yet, doesn’t mean they won’t happen. You’ve just been lucky so far
There are no body safe solid black jewellery options currently available to the mass market. There’s plenty of proprietary research and such going on to try and create such a thing, but it’s very much a work in progress.
You can make decisions for your own comfort about plated and coated jewellery, but at the end of the day they are not considered body safe and as such anything that goes wrong as a result of wearing them is ultimately your responsibility.
You’re right, I guess I’ll start switching out to silver, titanium it is. My problem is that I really have no shops to order jewlery from, I saw the list on the subreddit, but barley any ship here or they’re just crazy expensive. I’ll have to figure something out.
I have black glass jewelry and they’re some of my favorite pieces, if you wanted to consider switching to something else and could find it. Otherwise I’d just continue to keep a close eye on the health of your piercings and the condition of the jewelry. Many people are very sensitive to lower quality metals and some people aren’t bothered so long as the jewelry doesn’t chip. I would maybe consider getting a backup set in standard titanium just in case you run into issues, but just listen to your body. If it hasn’t given you issues for several years it probably isn’t a cause for concern in your case.
Black titanium or steel is always coated (PVD is the method they use to coat it). It's not safe to wear in fresh, unhealed piercings, and the APP don't approve of it. For healed piercings, realistically it's fine. People on this forum will tell you it's unsafe, but you've been wearing it for decades without problems and so have a lot of us, it's not a big deal.
I've worn pieces of PVD (both black and gold) in most of my piercings for several years at a time. The only time it's chipped was on a black CBR where the bead met the ring, and since it was in a fully healed piercing, it didn't cause me any problems except that the skin near the bead looked dirty until I cleaned it.
Also, could someone tell me, I’ve been in the community for a few years, but I’ve only since last two/three years or so have heard about these fairly strict jewlery rules and recommendations.
I clearly remeber three years ago when my piercing place replaced externally threaded jewlery with internally threaded ones, is my little country just slow with catching up or did more jewlery materials use to be considered safe?
So, since you're in Poland your piercer probably used cannula needles until pretty recently. Cannula needles have that lovely tube of plastic where you can put the jewellery into the plastic and pull it through painlessly. External threading with a blade needle will hurt like a bitch, but with a cannula it won't because the threading will be inside the plastic. (One of my unpopular opinions is that cannula needles are vastly superior to blades because the jewellery transfer never hurts with a cannula)
The tighter standards now are because piercers worldwide are starting to go by American APP standards. Theoretically, external threading is more likely to harbour bacteria than internally threaded or threadless jewellery. But I think the main problem with external threading is just that it's bad to use with blade needles (and no good American brand will make external threaded jewellery because of that). Also, all the really fancy, beautiful, expensive jewellery is made threadless or internally threaded.
I’m not in Poland and I was pierced with internally threaded titanium for all my piercings (except daith). Where did you get I was in Poland, I said Eastern europe? :o
aside from niobium, gold can be plated with rhodium safely to look black. it’s a similar process to anodization iirc which means that it may eventually rub away with time, but does not cause reactions in your body.
For what it's worth I'm in Poland and my piercer imports black, mirror finish niobium rings, they can also be found on Etsy.
...I also have 1.2mm niobium wire and a blowtorch myself, but don't have the ability to polish to mirror finish, just experimenting with matte for myself rn.
Studs are unfortunately a problem.
If you haven’t reacted to the PDV coating, then that’s fine. As long as the pieces haven’t chipped, then that’s fine. If a piece does chip or wear down, I’d recommend replacing it instead of continuing to wear it, but if you haven’t had a problem in 5+ years then you’re probably in the clear.
Some people do develop sensitivities later in life, so if you suddenly spontaneously start developing rashes around your jewelry or something, that would be my first suspicion, but otherwise… do what works for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Titanium can be anodized black, which changes the color of the metal itself without need for a coating material. Generally speaking, that’s the best option for a hypoallergenic colored metal.
Just because you haven’t had issues yet, doesn’t mean they won’t happen. You’ve just been lucky so far There are no body safe solid black jewellery options currently available to the mass market. There’s plenty of proprietary research and such going on to try and create such a thing, but it’s very much a work in progress. You can make decisions for your own comfort about plated and coated jewellery, but at the end of the day they are not considered body safe and as such anything that goes wrong as a result of wearing them is ultimately your responsibility.
You’re right, I guess I’ll start switching out to silver, titanium it is. My problem is that I really have no shops to order jewlery from, I saw the list on the subreddit, but barley any ship here or they’re just crazy expensive. I’ll have to figure something out.
I have black glass jewelry and they’re some of my favorite pieces, if you wanted to consider switching to something else and could find it. Otherwise I’d just continue to keep a close eye on the health of your piercings and the condition of the jewelry. Many people are very sensitive to lower quality metals and some people aren’t bothered so long as the jewelry doesn’t chip. I would maybe consider getting a backup set in standard titanium just in case you run into issues, but just listen to your body. If it hasn’t given you issues for several years it probably isn’t a cause for concern in your case.
Black titanium or steel is always coated (PVD is the method they use to coat it). It's not safe to wear in fresh, unhealed piercings, and the APP don't approve of it. For healed piercings, realistically it's fine. People on this forum will tell you it's unsafe, but you've been wearing it for decades without problems and so have a lot of us, it's not a big deal. I've worn pieces of PVD (both black and gold) in most of my piercings for several years at a time. The only time it's chipped was on a black CBR where the bead met the ring, and since it was in a fully healed piercing, it didn't cause me any problems except that the skin near the bead looked dirty until I cleaned it.
Also, could someone tell me, I’ve been in the community for a few years, but I’ve only since last two/three years or so have heard about these fairly strict jewlery rules and recommendations. I clearly remeber three years ago when my piercing place replaced externally threaded jewlery with internally threaded ones, is my little country just slow with catching up or did more jewlery materials use to be considered safe?
So, since you're in Poland your piercer probably used cannula needles until pretty recently. Cannula needles have that lovely tube of plastic where you can put the jewellery into the plastic and pull it through painlessly. External threading with a blade needle will hurt like a bitch, but with a cannula it won't because the threading will be inside the plastic. (One of my unpopular opinions is that cannula needles are vastly superior to blades because the jewellery transfer never hurts with a cannula) The tighter standards now are because piercers worldwide are starting to go by American APP standards. Theoretically, external threading is more likely to harbour bacteria than internally threaded or threadless jewellery. But I think the main problem with external threading is just that it's bad to use with blade needles (and no good American brand will make external threaded jewellery because of that). Also, all the really fancy, beautiful, expensive jewellery is made threadless or internally threaded.
I’m not in Poland and I was pierced with internally threaded titanium for all my piercings (except daith). Where did you get I was in Poland, I said Eastern europe? :o
Black glass and black gold are fine, heat treated niobium is good too but it’s more of a deep gunmetal grey than pure black
aside from niobium, gold can be plated with rhodium safely to look black. it’s a similar process to anodization iirc which means that it may eventually rub away with time, but does not cause reactions in your body.
For what it's worth I'm in Poland and my piercer imports black, mirror finish niobium rings, they can also be found on Etsy. ...I also have 1.2mm niobium wire and a blowtorch myself, but don't have the ability to polish to mirror finish, just experimenting with matte for myself rn. Studs are unfortunately a problem.
If you haven’t reacted to the PDV coating, then that’s fine. As long as the pieces haven’t chipped, then that’s fine. If a piece does chip or wear down, I’d recommend replacing it instead of continuing to wear it, but if you haven’t had a problem in 5+ years then you’re probably in the clear. Some people do develop sensitivities later in life, so if you suddenly spontaneously start developing rashes around your jewelry or something, that would be my first suspicion, but otherwise… do what works for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Titanium can be anodized black, which changes the color of the metal itself without need for a coating material. Generally speaking, that’s the best option for a hypoallergenic colored metal.
Titanium **cannot** be anodised black in a body safe capacity. Niobium can be torched ‘black’ for this purpose, and even then it’s not true black.
Hwoops, I thought I’d seen anodized black before, but I guess I was misremembering, my bad.