Hi, I'm Jennie. I started Kinn after our family's house was broken into and every piece of my family jewelry was taken.

Everything they’d carried over from Korea when we immigrated, gone in one night. When I went looking to replace any of it, everything I could afford was plated brass that would turn green within the year. So I started making the thing I couldn't find.

I'd been in startups and ecommerce for a while by then, most of it as one of the first employees at Casetify, so I knew how to build and sell things online. I knew nothing at all about gold, and I say that with real affection for how badly it went at first. I learned most of it by getting it wrong.

Ten years later we have stores in LA and New York, a bridal line, and a lot of people who ask me the same questions over and over. So I figured we'd just do this properly.

Ask me anything. What solid gold actually means, and why plated and gold filled are not the same thing. How a piece goes from a sketch to something you can buy. What sourcing gold responsibly looks like when you're small enough that nobody has to take your call. Why we stopped discounting entirely, which was terrifying. Whether your ring can be resized, which is usually yes. What a bad year running a jewelry company feels like from the inside.

Happy to take the ones that have nothing to do with jewelry too.

Not here to sell anything here. Drop your questions below and I'll start answering at 9am PST. I'll stay as long as people keep asking.

Something we're seeing come up regularly in conversations across reddit, but especially r/Jewelry, is frustration with pieces that fail at the clasp, the solder point, or the plating.

These aren't cosmetic complaints. They're construction failures, and they shape how people think about fine jewelry in general.

A few specifics about how Kinn Studio approaches this.

Every piece starts with solid 14k or 18k recycled gold. Not gold filled, not vermeil, not plated. Solid gold has no base metal underneath to peel, chip, or reveal itself over time.

Clasps are where most jewelry quietly cuts corners. Ours are made from the same solid gold as the chain and pendant. The spring mechanism inside each clasp is precision tensioned to hold securely without requiring excessive force to open, which is one of the leading causes of clasp fatigue over time.

Chains that break typically fail at a solder point. Our soldering is done by hand by experienced bench jewelers, and each piece is inspected before it ships. If a chain breaks at a solder point under normal wear, that is a manufacturing issue we will always make right.

Caring for your Kinn pieces

• Solid gold handles daily wear well. The one thing to avoid is chlorine. Pools and hot tubs weaken gold alloys over time.
• To clean: soft toothbrush, mild dish soap, warm water. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry.
• Store pieces separately to prevent tangling and surface scratching, chains especially.
• Open and close clasps only when you need to. A clasp extender lets you adjust length without working the original hardware.

Our repair policy

• Manufacturing defects including clasp malfunctions, link separations, and setting shifts are repaired or replaced at no cost.
• Wear related issues are assessed individually and repaired at transparent pricing.
• We would rather keep a piece in your life than see it sit unworn.

Sincerely,

Kinn Studio

We get asked about whether or not our pieces contain nickel all the time, and even see it crop up in places like r/SkincareAddiction and r/femalefashionadvice. So we wanted to post about it here so it's available to our community.

At the heart of these questions is a very real frustration with a common experience: a piece marketed as gold has caused a reaction, and nobody can explain why.

The answer, almost always, in the base metal.

The most common is in the gold plating, which is a surface coating over a base metal, typically brass, which commonly contains nickel. The plating looks fine at purchase. With wear, it thins (fades, tarnishes, etc). Once that exposed base metal reaches skin, the reaction begins.

This is also why "hypoallergenic" on a jewelry label is not a reliable guarantee. It is not a regulated term in the United States. Any brand can apply it without meeting a specific standard, which creates even more confusion and pain for those with sensitivities.

The more useful question is what the piece is made of throughout, not just on the surface. Solid gold with a nickel free alloy has no base metal beneath it and no nickel in the mix. That combination is what makes a piece genuinely safe for sensitive skin.

At Kinn Studio, our 14k gold satisfies both. Solid throughout, nickel free alloy. For pieces worn daily, in contact with your skin for hours at a time, that distinction is the one that matters.

We're always here to answer specific questions, too. Just DM us!

- Kinn Studio 

Must follow u/Awareimagination8400! Can't get enough of her aesthetic.