What to Know When Choosing Gold Body Jewelry

How is gold jewelry priced? 

Gold body jewelry is not just beautiful, it’s valuable. Because gold is a precious metal, its price fluctuates greatly.  When the stock market or the economy becomes unstable, many investors look to gold as a safe investment, driving up its price significantly. This fluctuation in the price of raw gold also causes fluctuations in the price of the jewelry which it is used to make. In February of 2024, the price of gold was roughly $2053/oz. Today, the price of gold is approximately $2936 per ounce–an increase of almost 43%.  

What does the Karat number indicate? 

The number of karats of gold indicates the purity of the gold used. 24 Karat gold is the purest form of gold. 18K gold is 75% pure gold. 14 Karat gold is 58.3% pure gold, and 10K gold is 41.7% gold. The price for your gold jewelry is determined in great part by how much gold or the karat of gold it contains. 

How does Karat affect jewelry longevity?

On the MOHs scale of metal hardness, yellow gold (2.5) is one of the softer metals, while titanium (9.0) is one of the hardest. That means that when manufacturing body piercing jewelry, the higher the gold content, the softer the jewelry would be–so a supplier has to carefully select the correct karat of gold to ensure that the jewelry is as pure as possible while still retaining enough hardness to be a durable piece.   

At Metal Mafia, we began by manufacturing only 18k gold jewelry, in order to offer our customers the best value–a high level of purity with a strength that made it durable enough for the wear and tear our customers expect it to endure. In 2025, however, we decided to switch to offer 14K as well, because 14K offers increased durability, and now, because of the rising costs of gold, increased value, and continued accessibility. 

Should gold body jewelry be stamped?   

In traditional (non-body piercing) gold jewelry, gold is stamped with its karat to help identify its purity. However, in the body jewelry industry, stamping or marking jewelry runs the risk of creating a place for potentially harmful bacteria to accumulate. Thus, there is a dilemma for manufacturers and consumers alike.  How can a customer tell if her piece of jewelry conforms with the karat the manufacturer says it is without the stamp? How can a customer know her piece of jewelry is safe to wear if it is stamped? 

Metal Mafia believes that safety is the priority for a piece of body piercing jewelry and in keeping with this, we do not stamp our gold. However, we test each piece of our jewelry when it arrives in our warehouse with a state of the art XRF machine, allowing us to get a precise karate content reading to ensure that every piece of jewelry we sell is the correct karat we mark it with.