Sterling silver is less reliable for sensitive ears than most people assume, and the number stamped on it explains why. 925 means 92.5 percent silver. The remaining 7.5 percent is other metal, usually copper, and it's almost never disclosed. Copper is what turns skin green and it tarnishes readily. Our Polished Surgical Steel collection doesn't have that problem.
Why 925 decides whether sterling silver suits sensitive ears
This is the part that surprises people, and it's printed on the jewelry itself.
925 isn't a quality mark. It's a recipe. It states that 925 parts in every 1,000 are silver, which is 92.5 percent, and that the other 75 parts are something else.
Pure silver is too soft for most jewelry, so it gets alloyed to harden it. Copper is the traditional and most common addition, because it's cheap and it works well.
So sterling silver is a mostly-silver alloy with a copper problem built into the definition, and the amount is fixed by the standard rather than by the brand.
Nobody is hiding this. It's simply that most people read 925 as a certification of purity rather than as a statement of what else is in there.
Why copper matters for ears
Copper is reactive. Against warm, slightly damp, mildly acidic skin it corrodes at the surface, and the compounds it forms are green. Those transfer onto the skin around the piercing.
That's the same mechanism behind green marks from low-karat gold and from brass. Sterling silver sits in the same category, and it can put more copper against skin than a high-karat gold piece does.
Copper also drives tarnishing. Silver tarnish is a surface reaction with sulfur compounds in air and on skin, and the copper content accelerates it. Tarnish is a chemical change on the surface, and it happens against a lobe as readily as in a jewelry box.
What sensitive ears actually respond to
Worth separating two things, because they get conflated.
Green marks are a chemical reaction on the surface of the skin. They wash off and they're not dangerous in themselves. What they tell you is that metal is transferring, including inside the piercing channel where you can't see it.
Allergic reactions are an immune response, most often to nickel. Silver allergy is genuinely rare. Nickel allergy affects around one in five people in North America.
Where sterling silver gets complicated is that some sterling alloys contain small amounts of nickel, and the alloy content isn't usually published. So "sterling silver" tells you 92.5 percent of the answer and leaves the rest open.
The tarnish problem is a skin problem too
Most people think of tarnish as cosmetic. On an earring it isn't only that.
A tarnished surface is a chemically altered one, and it's rougher than a polished surface. Rough surfaces hold more sebum and shed skin cells inside the piercing channel, which contributes to build-up and to smell.
And the usual response makes it worse. Polishing cloths and silver dips remove the tarnish layer, and repeated polishing removes material. On a plated piece it removes the plating.
What about silver plated?
Different question, and usually a worse one.
Silver plated means a thin layer of silver over a base metal, often brass or a zinc alloy, and that base is rarely named. Every coating wears through eventually, first at the post and the back where friction concentrates. After that, skin is against whatever the manufacturer used.
Check the post. If the front still looks silver but the post has gone a darker or yellower color, the plating has worn through.
How it compares for daily wear
Against S316L Surgical Steel, sterling silver comes off worse. S316L is a specific named grade chosen for medical instruments and implants because it resists corrosion, so it releases very little and doesn't tarnish.
Against pure 24 karat gold, worse, because 24 karat has no alloy at all.
Against 9K or 14K gold, comparable. Both are majority-precious-metal alloys with an undisclosed remainder that usually contains copper.
Against unnamed base metal, better, because at least 92.5 percent of it is known.
For occasional wear, sterling silver is fine for most children. For continuous daily wear, which is what children's earrings actually get, the copper content works against you over time because exposure accumulates.
What to ask if you're buying it anyway
- What's the other 7.5 percent? Copper is most likely. Some alloys use germanium or zinc, and a few contain nickel.
- Is it solid or plated? If plated, the base metal is the real question.
- Are the post and the back also sterling? Backs are frequently bought in from a different supplier, so a claim about the earring may not cover them.
- Has anything been tested, by whom, with what result?
Why silver still gets recommended for children
It is worth understanding, because the advice is well meant and it comes from somewhere reasonable.
Silver has a long association with being gentle and traditional, and for a first pair of earrings that association is comforting. It is also inexpensive relative to gold, widely available, and it looks like what most people picture when they think of a simple stud.
None of that is about how it behaves against skin over years of daily wear, which is the question actually being asked. The recommendation is about familiarity and price rather than about material performance, and the two get conflated because nobody separates them out loud.
The other reason it persists is that green marks get blamed on the wrong thing. A child goes green in a sterling pair and the conclusion drawn is that she has sensitive skin, rather than that the earring contained copper by definition. So the material escapes the blame and gets recommended again to the next parent.
If she wears sterling occasionally and it suits her, there is no reason to throw it away. For the pair she wears every day, through school and sport and sleep, the copper content is working against you the entire time.
What we do
purepixxi doesn't offer silver, and this article is the reason.
Sterling silver can't be pure enough to meet our two-material rule. 925 is the definition, not a compromise a brand chose, so there's no version of it that removes the copper.
We use two materials instead.
S316L Surgical Steel, the same grade used in medical instruments and implants, chosen because it resists corrosion and therefore releases very little. On the Polished Surgical Steel range that's the entire earring, one material throughout. It looks like the bright silver-toned metal most people are actually after, and it behaves considerably better against skin.
24K Pure Gold, which is pure 24 karat gold finished onto a solid S316L Surgical Steel core with Aunix™ 24K, our engineered gold finish.
The setting, the post and the butterfly back all carry the same core. Independently tested by SGS across eight pairs, covering the setting, the post and the butterfly back. Nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Tested to ASTM F2923 and CPSIA, with lead below a tenth of the United States legal limit. Report BTO 341803/1.
More detail on the materials page.
If you would rather not have to ask any of this again, the 5mm Star Stud Earrings in Surgical Steel are S316L throughout, with nothing plated over anything.
Questions parents ask next
Is sterling silver hypoallergenic? That word isn't regulated in jewelry and requires no test, so it doesn't answer anything. Sterling silver contains copper by definition and sometimes nickel, so it's a poor candidate for a blanket claim.
Why did her ears go green in silver but not in gold? Because sterling silver can contain more copper than a higher-karat gold piece. It's about the alloy rather than which precious metal is named.
Is fine silver better? Fine silver is 99.9 percent silver, so there's almost no alloy. It's very soft, which is why it's uncommon in earrings, and it tarnishes.
Does Argentium or similar help? Those alloys replace some copper with germanium and tarnish considerably less. They're better on that axis, less common, and the composition still isn't usually published on a listing.
Can I just polish the tarnish off regularly? You can, and repeated polishing removes material, and on plated pieces it removes the plating faster than ordinary wear does.
Related reading
- Is titanium better than surgical steel for earrings?
- Is surgical steel good for sensitive ears?
- Surgical steel vs stainless steel: what's the difference?
- What children's earrings are actually made of
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.
