Swirsky Designs

I recently had a customer come to me with an all to common problem.  A ring she was, for various reason's, no longer comfortable wearing was sitting in her jewelery box gathering dust.  Was there anything that could be done with it?

The ring was a nice enough 3 stone diamond ring- it looked something like the pione pictures below (image from diamond.com

The truth is, it is a lovely ring but not likely to be worn again. 

So we removed the stones and created  2 seperate pieces of jewelery- hanging earrings and a diamond endant.

I am super excited to announce that Swirsky Designs is now carrying Niobium ear wires.  Niobium is fairly new on the jewelery scene, but is making big waves because it is really good for people with sesitivities and allergies.  Now being used to make pacemakers and other medical equipment designed to stay in the body for long periods of time, niobium is an element that rarely reacts with biological tissue.  

Apart from being hypoallergetic, niobium has other nice features when it comes to jewelery design.  When you run an electric current through niobium, a process called "annodizing," it takes on various colours across the colour spectrum.  You can use electricity to paint the metal and create fantastic finishes that until now could not be easily achieved.  

Because niobium can not be soldered it does have it's limitations.  "Studs" are nearly impossible as are all earring posts attached directly to the earring back.  It also can not be used to create large and movable pieces of jewelery like chains.

As it is still a metal those who suffer from metal contact allergies might still have reactions to it, but as the metal contiously coats itself with a self healing layer that, in effect, creates an invisible physical barrier between the metal and the surrounding skin this is not usually a problem.

For more information about niobium please visit our All About Metals page by clicking here.

For more infomation on allergies and sensitivities please click here.