Friday, July 6, 2007

Will Copper Turn My Skin Green?

Personally, I love copper. I love it when it's bright and shiny and even after it starts to oxidize and get darker. There's a bit more weight to it than bright aluminum or even sterling silver and has such a beautiful warm glow. I love mixing it with other metals for a two tone look. Also, I'm not an expert, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest it might help people reduce the pain of arthritis.

I do get a lot of questions and comments from people about whether or not copper will make their skin turn green. Copper oxidizes by darkening and then turning green, just as sterling does so by tarnishing and iron does so by rusting. It's a natural process and the environment determines how quickly it happens. It happens faster in high humidity, but the speed of oxidation is also affected by the body chemistry of different people. Some people wear copper every day and it never turns green, some people wear it and it turns in one day. Some people can turn sterling dark in one day, too. We're all different in that way. I guess I'm lucky, because it actually takes quite some time for copper to even begin to show signs of oxidation for me and it also doesn't turn me green, so I get to enjoy wearing this lovely metal!

If you check out my last post, you'll find a quick, easy way to clean your copper if it does start to oxidize. Enjoy!

3 comments:

Kirsten said...

I see nothing wrong with a little green on the skin.

tigergirl said...

I love copper too. The plated copper OX doesn't colour your skin though, does it? I know the brass OX isn't meant to. Actually I'm one of those people that if I put on tarnished metal, it will be bright and shiny in no time (who knows what that says about my skin!).

Jules said...

I have arthritis and got a copper bracelet. (My wrist is one of my worst joints.) I wore it (never took it off) for well over a year. My wrist became a wrist again - without the pain! At one of my doc visits, I got the sense my doc was making fun of my green skin. I decided the green skin was strange and took it off, this was two months ago. Now my wrist is back to terrible, stinging pain. I plan on putting my bracelet back on as soon as i get home today.