Content All Articles Body Adornment History Jewelry Materials New Products Production Stories RSS

This holiday season, we are particularly sensitive to what's happening around us politically and socially, and we want to raise awareness and move more spending power into the hands of those helping to respect and restore people and place. Donate to the non-profit of your choice and we will give you 20% off your order. Read on to learn how you can help others during this season of solidarity.

Stone has had enormous impact on us both creatively and technologically. Minerals gave us the first chance to paint our lives with color and story, and take it with us for others to see. It turns out that aside from things which are alive (birds, bugs, plants), colors in nature, and particularly jewel tones, are actually very rare. Most vibrant colors are either the result of environmental light play, such as sunsets or the color of a lagoon, or they are biological - flowers, butterflies, etc. In either of these cases, the color is not permanent. It is location specific, temporary, or sadly, it dies.

It's important to know that the wearing length of jewelry is measured differently depending on the style of jewelry, and that it is not the same as "overall length," which varies wildly by style and only contributes to good fit in certain circumstances. If you are custom ordering a piece of jewerly and you specify an overall length instead of a wearing length, your jewelry will not fit properly. Knowing your ideal wearing length, which can change as you stretch your piercings, ensures you're able to order jewelry that will fit well every time.

The demand for jewelry to adorn stretched piercings has never been higher. With that demand comes a marketplace hungry for new work and innovation, both aesthetically and technically. I believe the largest hinderance to that progress is the immense number of sizes at which people expect to be able to obtain similar styles.

For several years now I have been wrapping the wearable surface of my metal ear weights in natural thread. I do this because my ears do not care for some metals, and because I find that after the thread softens from some wear, they become much more comfortable than bare metal alone. This is particularly important with very heavy weights.

If you have ever remotely considered adding a tattoo or piercing to your body, you have probably encountered that special someone who asks you jokingly, “So what are you going to do when youʼre 80?” Iʼd say most people feel insulted by that question, but maybe it should get us thinking. Who are we supposed to be when weʼre older? And why does everyone believe that at 80 we will all of a sudden regret whatever alteration weʼve made to our bodies. Who decided that tattoos would be something each and every teenager would regret at the sight of their first wrinkle or after the birth of their first child? Which authority on adornments decreed that all piercings should be rendered obsolete after age 30 (or 40, or 50?) Is the first AARP invitation in the mailbox our signal that weʼre aging and body modifications are taboo? Donʼt pull out the Frosty the Snowman sweaters and Hush Puppies just yet, letʼs take another look at this.

We get asked quite frequently to talk about labrets (lip piercings), methods for stretching and the dangers of tooth damage and gum erosion. Below you find a response to one of those emails which we think sums up our thoughts quite well on the subject.

I will speak simply of my personal experience with my own stretched labret, currently at about 21mm. Labrets and other oral work are really the only ‘common’ piercings that have the potential to result in permanent damage that is very expensive to repair, if not irreparable altogether, in comparison to other procedures and stretched piercings. There are some safeguards that can be taken to give you the best chance that damage will not occur, but the reality is that in many cases it will eventually happen over time and that is something that needs to be considered.