A lot of people consider real jewelry to be a valuable lifetime investment. However, these same people can also see that there are a lot of great advantages to purchasing costume jewelry instead. Therefore, it is no wonder that costume jewelry is continuing to grow in popularity today. You will find that there are some main reasons for this:

Price

The great benefits about this type of jewelry are cheap. It also is easily found almost anywhere you go looking for it. One of my favorite things about it is that it is incredibly versatile and there are many different types of it. There is also a huge price range. It is possible to find costume jewelry that is quite expensive.

Fashion

Fashion jewelry is very affordable. This is actually one of its best advantages: You can actually purchase several different pieces of costume jewelry for the same price that you would pay for a single piece of real jewelry.

Of course, this means that you will be able to get more for your money by purchasing costume jewelry without ever having to make any sacrifices for it. With proper handling and care you will even find that your jewelry will last you for several years. This is especially true of jewelry that has either a gold or silver overlay since plated items tend to fade and tarnish a lot more easily.

Valuable

Another really great thing that people don’t think about is that if you buy costume jewelry over the real stuff you don’t have to worry about losing a valuable item and you will not have to insure it. You also will not have to worry about your safety if you are out in the city wearing your jewelry.

Colors and styles

You will find a lot of different colors and styles available with fashion jewelry. This is because synthetic stones can be made in any color you desire. Then, whenever it comes to materials, you can choose to use nylon fiber, plastic acrylic, wood, shells and stones since any of these things can then be coated with gold, silver or platinum.

Costume jewelry (also called trinkets, fashion jewelry, junk jewelry, fake jewelry, or fallalery) is jewelry manufactured as ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable costume or garment.Costume jewelry came into being in the 1930s as a cheap, disposable accessory meant to be worn with a specific outfit. It was intended to be fashionable for a short period of time, outdate itself, and then be repurchased to fit with a new outfit or new fashion style. Its main use is in fashion, as opposed to “real” (fine) jewelry which may be regarded primarily as collectibles, keepsakes, or investments. Costume jewelry is made of less valuable materials including base metals, glass, plastic, and synthetic stones; in place of more valuable materials such as precious metals and gems.

Originally, costume or fashion jewelry was made of inexpensive simulated gemstones, such as rhinestones or lucite, set in pewter, silver, nickel or brass. During the depression years, rhinestones were even down-graded by some manufacturers to meet the cost of production. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the World War II era, when sterling silver was often incorporated into costume jewelry designs. This was driven by primarily two factors: The components used for base metal were needed for war time production (i.e., military applications) and a ban was placed on their use in the private sector. Base metal was originally popular because it could approximate platinum’s color, sterling silver fulfilled the same function. This resulted in a number of years during which sterling silver costume jewelry was produced and some can still be found in today’s vintage jewelry marketplace.

Modern costume jewelry incorporates a wide range of materials. High end crystals, cubic zirconia simulated diamonds, and some semi-precious stones are used in place of precious stones. Metals include gold- or silver-plated brass, and sometimes vermeil or sterling silver. Lower-priced jewelry may still use gold plating over pewter, nickel or other metals; items made in countries outside the United States may contain lead. Some pieces incorporate plastic, acrylic, leather or wood.

Costume jewelry is considered a discrete category of fashion accessory, and as such it displays many of the characteristics of a self-contained industry. Costume jewelry manufacturers are located throughout the world, with a particular concentration in parts of China and India, where entire city-wide and region-wide economies are dominated by the trade of these goods. There has been considerable controversy in the United States and elsewhere about the lack of regulations in the manufacture of such jewelry–these range from human rights issues surrounding the treatment of labor, to the use of manufacturing processes in which small, but potentially harmful, amounts of toxic metals are added during production. In the United States a scandal broke when it was discovered during testing that cheap costume jewelry from China contained unsafe levels of the metal cadmium. The wider issues surrounding imports, exports, trade laws, and globalization, also apply to the costume jewelry trade.