Vegan Friendly Jewellery Tips – Apiliotis Jewellery

I have become vegan after I started making my jewellery and have been heartbroken by realizing to what extent animals have been used traditionally in the art I have chosen to do.

After discussions with  friends, I realized that a lot of people don’t know that vegan jewellery has not only to do with the materials we use, but also the techniques, workshop tools, protective equipment etc.

Here there are some tips that I have acquired over the last years about vegan alternatives in a jewellery workshop.

Materials. Of course the first step is to use animal free materials. Fashion industry has progressed so much the last years in this aspect! Good quality vegan leathers, cotton fabrics, bee wax free (hemp based) macramé cords, fine metal chains are widely available. A very nice idea is to upcycle scrap fabrics and metals in your jewellery.

Remember! Materials like silk and pearls are also non-vegan.

Jewellery tools. `Animal products can be found in a lot of traditional jewellery making tools. Avoid rawhide mallets, leather aprons, sandbags or finger protectors. Also, a lot of brushes for our rotary tools and polishing units use leather. Avoid beeswax for lubricant.

Use instead  fire retardant leatherette, plant based plastic, Demin or cotton sandbags, aprons and finger protectors. Use cotton or silicon brushes and coconut oil lubricants.

Jewellery workshop solutions and ingredients. A lot of ingredients that we use in our workshops may derive from animals. e.g. Shellac, used for hand engraving and stone setting techniques, is a resin made by female lac bug of forest trees in India and Thailand. Also, many lubricants for our polishing units, like tripoli & rouge, contain animal fats.

Use instead  bench clamp with soft cotton cloths or silicon based holders for stone setting and engraving. Use Luxi polishing compounds that are vegan and water based.

In a world made to exploit animals, we all make mistakes. Information and knowledge are the key. We can choose compassion in our next workshop order. And of course, we do not waste what we already have in order to exchange it with the vegan option! We just need to be informed and fight for a kinder world!

Xxx,

Kat