With a dimethylglyoxime spot test, which costs a few dollars, takes about a minute and works on jewelry you already own. You put two drops on a cotton swab, rub the metal for thirty seconds, and look at the swab. Pink means nickel is coming off the surface. It's the same chemistry dermatologists have used for decades, and it's genuinely useful for triaging a drawer full of earrings. It also has real limits, which matter as much as the result. Our materials page explains what we do instead of asking you to test.
What you need
A dimethylglyoxime test kit. Sold as a nickel test or nickel spot test, usually two small bottles. One is dimethylglyoxime in alcohol, the other is ammonia solution. Kits are inexpensive and one lasts a long time.
Cotton swabs. A fresh one per item, because carrying residue from one earring to the next will give you a false positive on the second.
Good light. The color change is obvious when it's strong and subtle when it's weak, and daylight helps.
How to do it
Clean the item first. Wipe with soap and water and dry it. Skin oils, lotion and polish residue all sit between the swab and the metal.
Two drops of each bottle onto the swab. One drop of the dimethylglyoxime, one of the ammonia. Onto the swab, not onto the jewelry.
Rub firmly for about thirty seconds. Firmly matters. You're testing what comes off under friction, which is closer to what happens against skin than a gentle dab.
Test the post and the back, not just the front. This is the part most people skip and it's the part that counts. The post sits inside the piercing channel and the butterfly back takes the most friction, so those are the surfaces that wear first and contact longest.
Read the swab. A pink or red stain means nickel is being released from the surface. No color change means none was detected by this method.
Rinse the jewelry afterwards. Soap and water, then dry it.
How to read the result
Clear pink is a clear answer. Nickel is available at that surface, right now, under mild friction. If the ear reacts to that pair, you have a plausible explanation.
Faint pink is still a positive. It's a smaller amount, not a different result.
No color is the one to be careful with. It means nickel wasn't detected by a spot test with a detection threshold far coarser than a laboratory method. It doesn't mean the item contains no nickel, and it doesn't mean the item will never release any.
A negative on a plated item is time limited. You've tested the coating, not what's underneath. When the plating wears through at the post, the answer can change. Retesting an old favorite pair after a year is a reasonable thing to do.
What the test can't tell you
It isn't a measurement. EN 1811, the laboratory standard, puts a sample in artificial sweat for a full week and reports a figure in micrograms per square centimeter per week, against a legal limit of 0.5 for prolonged contact and 0.2 for a pierced ear. A swab gives you a yes or a no at a much higher threshold.
It doesn't diagnose your daughter. A positive tells you about the metal, not about her immune system. Plenty of children wear nickel-releasing earrings without ever reacting. Whether she is sensitized is a question for a doctor, and patch testing is how that's answered properly.
It only sees nickel. Cobalt and chromium also cause contact reactions. A negative nickel test doesn't rule those out.
It can't see through a coating. Which is the main reason a laboratory test on the finished item, done by the manufacturer, is worth more than a swab test done by you.
When it's genuinely worth doing
When you're trying to find the culprit. She reacts to some earrings and not others, and you want to know which ones to remove. Testing the drawer is faster than elimination over weeks.
Before a gift goes in. A pair arrives from a relative, nobody knows the brand, and you'd rather know before it goes in her ear than after.
On the pairs she's had longest. Plating wears. A pair that was fine two years ago is the most likely one to have changed.
When a seller won't tell you the grade. If the answer to "what alloy is it?" is an adjective, a swab is the only check available to you.
What you shouldn't have to do
Testing your own jewelry is a workaround for sellers not publishing their data. It's a good workaround and I'd rather you had it than not. It shouldn't be necessary.
The manufacturer already knows the alloy. They can have the finished item tested to EN 1811 by an accredited laboratory, get a figure, and publish it. That test is more sensitive than a swab, it's done on the actual product rather than one sample from your drawer, and it costs the brand rather than the parent.
Most don't, because an adjective is free and a test isn't.
What we do
purepixxi has the testing done and publishes it, so you don't have to swab our earrings.
We use two materials. S316L Surgical Steel throughout our Polished Surgical Steel range, one alloy front, post and back, with nothing plated over it. And 24K Pure Gold, pure 24 karat gold applied onto a solid S316L Surgical Steel core with Aunix™ 24K, our engineered gold finish. It's a gold-plating process and we describe it as one, including here where that's the less flattering thing to say.
Independently tested by SGS. Nickel release under EN 1811: not detected. Tested to ASTM F2923, CPSIA and BSEN 71-3, with lead below a tenth of the United States legal limit. Report BTO 341803/1, and you can ask me for a copy.
Swab a pair if you want to. It won't tell you as much as the report will, and I'd rather you had both.
You can see the range on the 24K Pure Gold collection.
If you would rather not have to ask any of this again, the 4mm Ball Stud Earrings in Surgical Steel are S316L throughout, with nothing plated over anything.
Questions parents ask next
Where do I buy a nickel test kit? Pharmacies sometimes carry them and they're widely available online. Look for dimethylglyoxime on the bottle rather than a brand name.
Will the test damage the jewelry? No. It's a surface reaction, it doesn't etch or discolor, and it rinses off with soap and water.
Can I test her skin instead? No. This chemistry detects nickel on metal. Testing whether she's sensitized is patch testing, which a doctor does.
Does a positive mean she'll definitely react? No. It means nickel is available at that surface. Whether her skin responds depends on whether she's sensitized and how long the contact lasts.
Her ear is red, hot and swollen. Should I test the earring first? Take the earring out and speak to your pediatrician. Testing the metal afterwards may help you avoid a repeat, but it isn't the first thing to do when a child's ear looks like that.
Related reading
- How do I know if my daughter is allergic to nickel?
- Does nickel free actually mean nickel free?
- Do gold earrings contain nickel?
- Why her ears react to earrings, and what to do about it
About the author. Matt Westmore is the founder of purepixxi. He came to children's jewelry from manufacturing and sourcing rather than marketing, which means he has walked the factory floors and knows what is actually inside a product rather than what a label says about it. purepixxi uses two materials only, names them exactly, and has them independently tested.
