My daughter recently had her ears pierced (just through the lobe in the usual place. Nothing crazy.) and, being 8, is naturally drawn to the cute, cheap earrings at Claires, etc.
But reading up online about cheap jewelry has us alarmed about possible lead poisoning. Example:
However, all the articles I can find talk about the danger of young children ingesting or sucking on the products. What I can’t find is: is there any danger from simply wearing jewelry that may contain lead?
(yes, yes, why take the risk with a child, of course. But I want know the facts before making any decision.)
Most of what I see online says that lead only passes through skin when found in organic compounds. But is an ear-piercing “skin”? or is the inside more like a wound?
It’s nickel you should worry about, not lead. (Or mercury, antimony or arsenic). And yes, wearing earrings containing nickel can cause life-long allergy problems.
Gold, silver and palladium are OK. Note that “white gold” can be a gold/palladium, but also a gold/nickel alloy.
Here’s a fact about lead you should consider before making your decision:
No safe threshold for lead exposure has been discovered—that is, there is no known sufficiently small amount of lead that will not cause harm to the body. (cite)
To be clear, the “life-long allergy problems” are a rash or something similar after contact with nickel-containing objects. IOW if after wearing cheap-ass jewelry for years, one develops such a sensitivity, one can treat the problem by simply no longer wearing cheapie crap.
People being people, I didn’t want anyone thinking you could wind up with an Epi-Pen anaphylaxis level allergy to nickel – or at least, I’ve never in my life heard such a thing – or that you could wind up with a peanut allergy or something.
I used to wear cheapie crap and now avoid it – makes the piercing spot kinda itchy, but nothing worse than that. I believe it’s considered “skin” and not a wound, though.
ETA: one online source for nickel-free jewelry is Simply Whispers at www.simplywhispersstore.com. I’ve ordered from them before, since I try to avoid nickel alloys now. OP, they have ***lots ***of cutesey little-girl type studs, in addition to non-earring jewelry.
