Why We Batch Test Against EU REACH Standards

There's No Requirement to Tell You What's in Your Jewellery

In Australia, there's no mandatory testing for nickel release, lead, or other heavy metals in the jewellery sold here. A piece can go from a factory floor straight to a market stall or an online shop without ever being tested for what it's actually made of, and there's no law requiring the seller to tell you.

That gap shows up everywhere. We see jewellery sold with vague, inaccurate, or simply missing information about what it contains, a lot of it moving through mass marketplace sourcing and market stalls with no real accountability behind it. Stainless steel is regularly sold as nickel-free, when in reality it typically contains around 10 to 14 percent nickel as part of the alloy itself. Metals like nickel are a well known cause of skin reactions for many people, and without testing, neither the seller nor the wearer actually knows what they're dealing with.

So We Test to a Framework That Isn't Even Required Here

Rather than rely on our suppliers' own testing, we run an independent audit on every production batch ourselves, against EU REACH, the European Union's chemical safety regulation. It's not a legal requirement in Australia, and it's not a certification you can buy, it's a regulatory framework we've chosen to follow because it's among the most rigorous international benchmarks available for exactly this kind of testing. We're the first Australian jewellery brand to independently test every production run against EU REACH standards.

What Batch Testing Actually Means

Every production batch is independently tested before it goes on sale, for heavy metal content and nickel release, to EU REACH compliance standards. This is representative sample testing across the batch and not a one-off check when a supplier relationship starts either, every batch, every time. 

For vermeil and gold-plated batches, we go a step further and independently test the plating itself, to confirm the gold layer actually matches its stated micron thickness. That number isn't just a technicality, it's the difference between a piece that's genuinely built to the thickness stated and one that's simply marketed as vermeil without ever being checked and the price gap between the two and the durability can be significant.

Why We Bother

If a piece isn't something I'd put on my own daughter, I'm not putting it on anyone else's skin either. That's really the whole reason behind the testing, we'd rather know exactly what we're selling than assume it's fine because nobody's required to check.

It also means something for anyone who already knows they react to certain metals. With clear, tested information about what's actually in a piece, rather than a vague label or none at all, they can choose with real information instead of a guess.