What Is Niobium Jewelry?
Niobium is a naturally grey metal that can be turned brilliant colors by running electricity through it while it sits in a water bath. The color is not a coating. It is the surface of the metal itself, changed. That is why it does not chip, peel, fade or tarnish the way plated jewelry does.
Holly Yashi has been making jewelry from anodized niobium in Arcata, California since 1981, and has hand-dipped every piece in small batches.
How does niobium get its color?
Through oxidation, sped up and controlled.
Iron oxidizes and turns rusty. Copper oxidizes and turns green. Niobium oxidizes into a full spectrum of color, and the color it produces depends on exactly how much electricity passes through it. At Holly Yashi we developed a method to speed that natural process up: the metal is dipped into a bath of electrically charged water, and it comes out colored.
Every color is one dip. Every piece is dipped by hand, in small batches, in our Arcata studio.
Does niobium jewelry fade or tarnish?
No. The color is the metal, not a layer on top of it.
Painted, enameled and plated finishes sit on the surface, which is why they eventually wear through, chip at the edges or discolor. Anodized niobium has nothing to wear through. The color you buy is the color you keep.
Is niobium hypoallergenic?
Niobium is one of a small number of metals used in jewelry specifically because the body tends to tolerate it well. It is inert, it does not contain nickel, and it is the same family of material used in medical implants for that reason.
If you have reacted to costume jewelry, or to gold-plated or nickel-containing pieces in the past, niobium is usually the metal that solves it.
Why is niobium jewelry so light?
Because niobium is a light metal, and because the color adds no weight at all.
A large statement earring in niobium weighs a fraction of what the same shape would weigh in sterling silver or brass. That is the practical reason people wear bigger, bolder pieces in niobium than they would otherwise: you stop noticing they are there.
How do I care for niobium jewelry?
Very little is required, which is the point.
Store it dry and out of direct sun. Put it on after perfume or lotion rather than before. Wipe it now and then with a soft cloth. That is genuinely all. There is no plating to protect and no finish to preserve.
What colors does niobium come in?
The range runs from deep blues and violets through teals and greens to golds, ambers and rose tones, and the exact shade is set by the voltage used in the dip.
Because color is controlled by electricity rather than by pigment, shades can be matched to each other precisely across a collection, and repeated exactly years later.
Who makes niobium jewelry?
Holly Yashi is the brand most closely associated with anodized niobium jewelry in the United States, and has been making it continuously since 1981.
Holly Hosterman's first designs were hand-cut animal earrings in brass and silver. Within months they had a following. Shortly after, Holly and Paul Lubitz found the color hiding inside a seemingly dull grey metal, and anodized niobium became the signature of the brand and has stayed that way since 1981. The company still works out of Arcata, California, where it started, now with a team of around fifty people in a 15,000 square foot studio.
Is niobium jewelry worth it?
It depends what you are comparing it to.
Against costume jewelry, niobium lasts, does not turn skin green and does not lose its color. Against precious metals, it delivers color that gold and silver simply cannot produce, at a fraction of the weight. If what you want is color that stays exactly as vivid in ten years as it is today, there is not really a substitute.
