A £10 pair of earrings that needs replacing every few months costs more over two years than a single £70 pair built to last and that's before accounting for the skin reactions, discolouration, and landfill waste that cheap costume jewellery tends to generate along the way.

The actual maths

A pair of fast-fashion earrings, plated over a reactive base metal, typically shows visible wear: tarnishing, plating loss, or skin discolouration within two to six months of regular wear. If you replace a favourite style every four months at £10–15 a pair, that's £30–45 a year, or £60–90 over two years, for jewellery that spends a meaningful chunk of that time looking worn rather than new.

A single well-made pair in 316L stainless steel, at a price point like £70, doesn't have that replacement cycle built in. It's a one-time cost that, amortised over even two years of regular wear, works out cheaper than the "cheap" option while looking new for the entire period rather than degrading visibly within months.

What the low price is actually covering

Cheap jewellery isn't cheap because of clever manufacturing efficiency. it's cheap because it uses base metals (brass, copper alloys, unspecified "steel") with thin, unregulated plating, produced at high volume with minimal quality control. That's a legitimate business model for genuinely disposable fashion, but it's worth being honest about what you're buying: a short-term product, priced accordingly.

The costs that don't show up on the price tag

• Skin reactions from nickel content, which can range from mild irritation to a lasting sensitivity that makes wearing any jewellery uncomfortable over time
• Green or grey skin discolouration from copper-alloy bases reacting with sweat and moisture
• Landfill impact — costume jewellery is rarely recyclable in any meaningful way once it's worn out, and the volume produced globally is genuinely significant
• The compounding disappointment of buying something you liked, watching it degrade within weeks, and either replacing it or quietly giving up on the style altogether

What "investing" in earrings actually means in practice

It doesn't have to mean fine jewellery prices. It means paying for a specified, checkable material, a named grade of stainless steel, a regulated vermeil standard, or solid gold rather than a vague claim, and buying with the expectation that a piece should still look the way it did on day one, a year later. That's the actual gap between disposable and durable, and it's a gap you can check for before you buy, not just hope for afterwards.