How do you show a customer you really care about what you do? I've asked myself this question more times than I can count. Saying it is easy. Every brand says it. I wanted to show it.
Unlike a necklace, navel jewelry lives inside your body, not on your skin. It's with you always, when you sleep, at the gym, or sitting at a desk all day. It's no surprise the two questions I hear most are "Will it fit?" and "Is it safe for my body?"
Caring shows in every detail. The fit, you can see and feel. That's what the Piercing Concierge® is for. What your jewelry is made of remains a mystery, unless we prove it.
As of October 1, 2026, all our jewelry is tested in-house with laboratory-grade X-ray fluorescence (XRF) right before it ships.
What is Tested & Certified?
Tested & Certified takes the mystery out of what you're wearing. It goes beyond a stamp you have to trust or a line on a product page. It's a certificate you can hold in your hand.
It means putting your jewelry in without a second thought. If your skin is sensitive, you know what's touching it. If it's a gift, it arrives with proof it was made right. That's the confidence I want every customer to have.
Why do we test every piece?
I wanted you to have results for the jewelry you’ll actually wear. So we test each finished piece before it leaves our studio.
Here's something you probably didn't realize. Making jewelry takes a lot of steps and a lot of tools. Casting, soldering, setting, polishing. Any of them can introduce traces of other metals. Testing the finished piece gives us another opportunity to catch them.
We were already obsessive about this. We polish with the most sophisticated all-natural compounds, never with tools impregnated with contaminants that could transfer to your jewelry. And we work under a microscope from start to finish. You can't see what you're doing with small jewelry any other way. But that's a topic for another post, I promise.
How does XRF testing work?
XRF sounds technical. It's actually simple. A small beam of X-rays hits the surface of your jewelry. Each metal sends back its own signal, like a fingerprint. That tells us what's there, and how much.
No scratches. No marks. Nothing. It works at the surface, so we can test the finished jewelry you'll actually wear. Before we clean it, of course 😉
And it's precise. Our equipment measures in parts per million. It reliably picks up traces of contaminants like cadmium down to 100 parts per million. That's 0.01%, or one part in 10,000.
Nickel is the one I get asked about most. XRF checks the nickel content in the areas of your jewelry tested. A release test is different. It soaks jewelry in artificial sweat for a week to see how much nickel comes out. They answer different questions. Our XRF analysis checks nickel content; it does not measure nickel release. Your certificate shows whether the result is below our 100-parts-per-million screening threshold.
What does the certificate show?
Your certificate is matched to your order and provided for each item. It checks the gold purity behind your stamp. If it says 14k, you can see the measured gold content for yourself. Our 14k gold is 58.5% pure gold. 18k is 75%, and platinum 950 is 95% platinum. Nickel and cadmium get a clear pass or fail against the screening thresholds listed on your report.
What makes jewelry safe for a piercing?
The Association of Professional Piercers sets solid 14k gold, nickel- and cadmium-free, as the minimum for a fresh piercing. Nickel is the most common metal allergy. Cadmium is toxic and has no place in jewelry worn inside the body. Our 14k white gold is alloyed with a high percentage of palladium, a platinum-family metal, with no nickel. And now your certificate shows it.
The Association also calls for a smooth, mirror-polished finish. Here's why. As a piercing heals, new tissue forms right against your jewelry. Any scratch, cast mark or pit gives it something to grow into, and when your jewelry moves, that tissue can tear. A true mirror finish gives it nothing to hold on to. Ours is polished at 20× magnification to an even, deep mirror finish.
What the certificate can't promise?
I'll be straight with you. Your certificate shows exactly what your jewelry is made of. It can't promise how your body will react to it. Reactions to 14k gold are rare, but they can happen. If you're sensitive, many people prefer 18k gold or platinum. Text me through the Piercing Concierge® and we'll figure it out together.
There's another kind of change, and it isn't an allergic reaction. Everyone's skin chemistry is different. Sweat and skin acidity can react with the copper in a gold alloy, and a light film or discoloring can form on the surface. It changes how your jewelry looks, not what it's made of, and it usually doesn't affect your piercing.
If that ever happens, a light surface clean usually does it. If not, a simple polish brings it right back.
Buy with confidence
No one asked us to test every order. We took it on ourselves. We genuinely care about what we do, and I hope you can see it in this program.
Caring is easy to say. This is how we show it.
Alyssa Jolie, Founder of Jolie Co
