There is more to titanium jewelry than meets the eye

Titanium jewelry was one of the first commercial and mass consumer oriented application of the titanium metal. It followed titanium’s steady rise in status from a laboratory curiosity to the more “normal” metal profile. Titanium jewelry still is both the fastest growing market sector in titanium industries, and the fastest growing market sector in jewelry industries.

It should be noted that jewelers have limited possibilities of choosing the materials they need to perform their craft. They need a very special combination of inherent qualities that is found in only a precious few materials. More exactly, the jewelry items need to be durable, have a relative inertia to general corrosion factors and be easily tolerable by human skin.

This is already an incredible limiting set of requirements that already rules out many of the materials that are otherwise involved in many products that make our life easier. Still, one more thing is needed for jewelry. Beauty. Jewelry must have the ability to inherently provide and sustain a pleasant aesthetic effect, because this is why jewelry is created in the first place.

It is for these factors that the jewelry industry resided for long millennia on gold and silver, with the modern and minimal addition in the modern age of platinum. Though it was tried, and there is many an artisan who actively pursue the use of uncommon materials in jewelry – wood, glass – the alternative was simply never found.

Well, as of 1945, with the discovery of titanium and with its further increasing availability for commercial applications, due to the efficient refining technologies, this is not an issue anymore.

Titanium jewelry presents all the qualities needed to become a state of the art piece of jewelry. It is durable, far more durable and tough that it’s main competitors – gold, silver and platinum. It is corrosion resistant, and has the ability of sustaining this resistance, by replacing the passive oxide layers that provides it, should it be the case. And it is also far more hypoallergenic than any other thing that has been tried in the jewelry industry.

As for the beauty, in jewelry industries, as in other aspects of life, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Any metal can shine, should it be polished enough. Copper was beautiful in its time, and the leaders of the ancient times would have killed anyone that implied that their necklaces were anything less than magnificent.

And there is also the craft of the jeweler that makes an item of titanium jewelery more beautiful than the other. A titanium ring can be made as simple round band of metal, or as a true masterpiece adorned with intricate and complicated carvings, inlays and precious stones.

Titanium metal specific properties can be manipulated in such ways that the recognition of the metal is no longer possible for the uneducated eye, such as in these incredible titanium earrings. They allow artisans to create new items that were previously simply to inconceivable to go mainstream, due to the lack of a proper material, such as titanium money clips.

Titanium can also be anodized. This is a specific procedure that involves creating oxide layers of different thickness on the metal surface that present refractive properties, causing light interferences that generate optical effects with the same vivacity that is witnessed in the luminescent color of the rainbow or oil on water such as in these titanium necklaces and titanium bracelets.

The ignition of the titanium jewlery market development was caused by these unique titanium properties. In body jewelry, where the items sometimes interact directly with exposed tissue, titanium practically eliminated all other competitors, due to its hypoallergenic properties.

But there is also a cultural aspect that fuels this seemingly unstoppable growth of titanium jewelry sector. The fact that the metal is generally viewed as indestructible made titanium wedding bands a popular choice for couples, as they are certainly akin to the idea of transferring this indestructibility onto their own personal relationship. Also, men seem to better relate to titanium, and mens titanium wedding bands probably hurried many undecided bachelors to the altar.

Some companies are using titanium as the main marketing propeller, taking advantage of the mystical allure of the metal – metal of the gods. For instance, Phiten allegedly developed a proprietary Phild process that is used to make some very special Phiten titanium necklaces. Of course, they gained a lot of notoriety (and probably a great deal of money) in the process, though their explanations of the technology are questionable, to say the very least.

But the more classical artisans are not overlooking titanium, and practically any of the major jewelers are presenting a titanium jewelery selection in their catalogues. It’s only natural. Titanium and titanium jewelry are not things to be easily overlooked.

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