Steel vs. Allergy 1: 0

... if close my eyes and I say a few times the word “stainless steel / alloy steel” to myself what pops into my mind?

Sparkling, hard, durable, precious metal ... an engine block, a well-planned highly engineered component , a jewel that expresses all. There is much to hear about stainless steel /alloy steel jewelry today, but we have little and contradictory information about it. I feel competent and confident about this topic, because we started to produce stainless steel jewelry first in Hungary.

What is stainless steel? Alloyed iron. Iron alloyed with noble materials. Examples include nickel, chromium, molybdenum, silicon.

Precious metals, How did these precious metals earn this mark?
These are metals with metals with non -oxidizing characteristics.

This is very important since the air contains oxygen. What oxidizes is practically ruined, “rusted in the air” even if it is not used. Noble metals are metals that are resistant to corrosion or oxidation, unlike most base metals. That is how they have earned their name of “precious metals” and also often due to perceived rarity. Iron is found in nature in the form of iron oxide FeO2 or FeO3.

The ingenuity of man made it possible to extract the pure iron from the iron oxide and then combine it with other metals that give iron with wonderful attributes. For example, acid resistance, water resistance, abrasion resistance, hardness, toughness.

The iron alloy produced this way is stainless steel. It is not only easy but very hard, so it can be used very well in medicine as implant raw material.

Unfortunately, its machinability is very difficult. It requires expensive and special tools, eg. Tungsten ( wolfram -carbide tool), milling tools with a wire or ceramic insert. Many people mistakenly think that intro-body implants are made of platinum or colored stain. Of course, this is not true, since both metals have specific unit weight, heavy and soft outside, so it is not suitable as an intro-body implant material by itself. Except for dental technology where platinum or gold is used to make a dental crown.

And here comes one of the most important features of stainless steel!

No allergic reaction/ side effects!

Nowadays, metal allergies, especially nickel allergy, are becoming more common. EU standards have therefore determined how much nickel per cm2 is delivered, which does not cause allergic symptoms. And only those alloys can be marketed. Unfortunately, today in Hungary - although we are a member of the union - white gold alloy jewelry that are available here in Hungary often trigger allergic reactions probably due to too much nickel release.

For anyone with nickel allergies a noble stainless steel jewelry that does not allergic can be a great option or solution ! Many people are asking me of a palladium-blended white coin referring to their nickel allergy. Palladium white gold is indeed much brighter and whiter, but unfortunately it is very expensive, because in this matter the alloy material is palladium,which is a rare and expensive precious metal belonging to the group of platinum metals. Unfortunately, nickel allergy is often associated with palladium allergy, according to modern research, so palladium white gold may not be a solution for people with allergies.

It can be produced at low production-cost in high or even mass in quantity However, working as a jewelry material with it is very difficult to handle, so individual handmade pieces can sometimes reach the price of gold jewelry. Here it is very important to mention that when I say jewelry, I always think of individual, handmade, personalized jewelry. Mass production and serial production produced by machine work belong to another topic. Those products have no value-preserving, personality-expressing, uniqueness values and feature.

After one or two years of wearing, precious metals end up in melting pots and the rest are on the dumping lands. If they last for as long... The big fashion companies retain so called “designers” who are not really goldsmith. They are designing fashion goods that can be quickly go to ruin and can not be repaired. Of course, I do not want to say that there is no need for the designers to work! On the contrary! The mass demand justifies them and their work because nowadays, the "use it and throw it away" theory prevails.

Not only the cheaper but attractive fashion products are affected by the above mentioned “theory” , but also the more expensive ones such as in the field of electrical engineering and furnishing industry. My grandmother's furniture can still be used today; it is in good condition while the one-year "modern" and modern kitchen furniture has virtually has fallen apart to its components. If we are eager to "catch up" with the leading capitalist states so much, we should not make the same mistakes which they have overtaken in during their development process.

By producing these disposable goods more electricity, crude oil is used up from year to year and the burning of these waste-materials results in significant increase in the greenhouse effect.

Of course, many people think that one person can not do much for change, but that is not the case because the entire world's population is made up of separate people. Those who have discovered this - and there are more and more of them - try not to go against the flood, but to withstand some of the continuous, artificially induced consumer fever. Our grandparents could rarely buy something, or eventually had to collect them, so they carefully looked at the quality before they made up their mind!

They surrounded themselves with few objects, but those worth something and had value.. They represented value and their belongings were treated as value. Of course, I do not say that we should live like our grandparents, because new times require a new way of thinking and a modern approach. But the traditional values were always passed on from father to son and from mother daughter. I mean not only moral values, but financial values as well. If we really want our children to hold in their hands our beloved jewelry or our personal object one day, we will need high quality, durable design and abrasion-resistant materials, such as handmade stainless steel.

Perhaps, for this reason, the demand for artistically crafted durable goods and jewels is growing.

One must perceive the ancient desire in humankind: something very valuable, beautiful, which is mine only, unique and unrepeatable as man. I am wearing it on myself at night and day so that others can see my taste, rank where I belong to. This is the jewelry's ancient and contemporary duty!

András Mihalovits

Finest engagement, wedding and other elegant ring specialist.

+36 20 270 7777