Should You Wear Jewelry During the COVID -19 Pandemic?

Are you doing enough to protect yourself from the virus?

Washing our hands is one of our best defenses against the dreaded coronavirus. Health experts agree that soap, along with water, can break down the virus’s fatty lipids which destroy and prevent it from infecting you. In cases when these cleaning agents aren’t available, disinfecting using alcohol and gel sanitizers will suffice.

This begs the question about wearing jewelry in this day and age – should you still wear your precious jewelry pieces while the virus is still out there?

Read on to find out.

The 20-second rule

The Center for Disease Control recommends washing our hands for at least 20 seconds or the length of the “Happy Birthday” song sung twice. That’s enough time to thoroughly clean your hands and get rid of germs that may linger on them. It’s important to remember to take off your rings before washing lest you find them dropping into the drain. Remember to have the jewelry display tool of your choice nearby to place your accessory in the meantime. The next step to take is to disinfect your jewelry before putting it on again. You wouldn’t want to re-contaminate your hands by putting it without cleaning it again, right? If you need advice in this area, check out our tips on cleaning your jewelry from a previous article.

Follow what the doctors are doing

If you think that cleaning your hands and disinfecting your jewelry before putting them on is pretty tedious, that’s because it is! The CDC’s recommendation is that we should be washing our hands:

• Before and after eating
• Before and after food preparation
• After coughing, sneezing, or sneezing into your bare hands (better wear a face mask and carry tissue all the time instead)
• After using the bathroom
• After caring for someone sick
• Before you return home after being out

This could happen several times in a day and you would have to take off your rings each time you do.

Our advice?

Take a break from wearing your jewelry while the threat of COVID-19 is still present. Ever noticed how doctors rarely wear accessories especially while at work? That’s because germs could be hiding underneath jewelry. Leaving them on while washing is risky enough that they become prone to slippage, but even more so because it could be providing a safe cover from germs and viruses.

Another thing to consider is that certain gemstones can get easily damaged when they encounter chemicals present in sanitizers or antibacterial soaps. Better leave your collection in their respective display and storage holders and just use them once everything is safe and clear.


Each one of us is expected to do our part in keeping our communities safe and healthy. Taking a pause from wearing your jewelry can help a lot in saving you and your loved ones from getting sick. In the meantime, why not visit Nile Corp and check out our latest offerings which you can use to display and store your jewelry collection.