Meet Livia — The Single Mother Who Reinvented Jewelry for Sensitive Skin
Meet Livia: The Single Mother Who Reinvented Jewelry for Sensitive Skin
Before LOTTEDS existed, before the 316L steel and the PVD gold and the design collective, there was a folder.
In it: hundreds of photographs. Women's fingers circled in green. Necks marked with rashes. Earlobes inflamed and irritated. And the same question, written in dozens of different handwriting styles: "Is it me? Am I allergic to jewelry?"
The folder belonged to Livia. And it changed everything.
12 Years on the Other Side of the Counter
Livia wasn't a designer. She wasn't a gemologist. She wasn't born into a jewelry dynasty. She was a customer service representative — the person you talk to when your jewelry has a problem.
For 12 years, across multiple companies, she sat at the same desk and answered the same calls. A customer had saved for months to buy a gold necklace for her wedding — and it left a rash on her collarbone. A husband had bought his wife a ring for their anniversary — and her finger turned green within a week. A young woman with sensitive skin had been told by three different jewelers that she "just couldn't wear jewelry."
Livia listened. She cataloged. She tried to explain to her employers: the materials are the problem. The brass. The nickel. The cheap industrial alloys. This is fixable.
Nobody wanted to fix it. Changing materials meant spending more — and that meant smaller margins. So the calls kept coming. And Livia kept adding to the folder.
The Moment Everything Changed
In 2019, the company Livia worked for closed its doors. She was laid off — a single mother with two children, $3,200 in savings, and no clear path forward.
Most people in that position would have looked for another job. And Livia did look. But something had shifted. She couldn't un-hear those 12 years of calls. She couldn't un-see the folder full of irritated skin and disappointed faces.
So she made a decision that most people would call reckless: instead of finding another job answering the same complaints, she would build the solution herself.
Kitchen Table Beginnings
LOTTEDS was born in April 2020, at Livia's kitchen table — between homeschooling sessions, after the children were in bed. Her friend James Watson, a software engineer, helped her build the website. The first pieces were assembled by hand, one at a time.
And every single piece was tested on Livia's own skin first.
If it caused even the faintest irritation, it didn't ship. If the gold finish showed signs of wear after a week of constant wear, it went back for revision. The rule was absolute: pass the skin test, or don't leave the house.
The Material That Changed Everything
Livia tested everything. Gold (beautiful but soft and expensive). Sterling silver (lovely but requires maintenance). Titanium (incredibly biocompatible but difficult to work with for detailed designs).
Then she found 316L stainless steel — an alloy used in surgical implants, aerospace components, and luxury Swiss watches. It was nickel-free. Biocompatible. Stronger than gold. And it never, ever turned skin green.
She paired it with PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) — the same gold-bonding technology used in high-end watches — to create pieces that had the warm glow of 18K gold but the resilience of surgical steel.
For the first time, the material matched the mission.
From One Woman to a Global Community
Today, LOTTEDS has grown far beyond that kitchen table. The design collective — led by Bob and a team of independent artisans — creates pieces inspired by the great jewelry traditions of Rome, reimagined for modern, skin-safe materials.
But the founding rule hasn't changed. Every piece still passes Livia's skin test. Every material is still chosen for how it interacts with the human body, not just how it looks in a display case.
And that folder? It's still there. Not as a reminder of the problem — but as proof that someone finally listened.
Livia's philosophy, unchanged since 2020: "Jewelry should make you feel beautiful. It should never make you feel uncomfortable. And it should absolutely never make you feel like something is wrong with your body. The problem was never you. It was the materials. We fixed the materials."
What This Means for You
When you buy a LOTTEDS piece, you're not just buying jewelry. You're buying the answer to 12 years of phone calls. You're buying a piece that was designed by people who believe beautiful things should feel like nothing on your skin. And you're buying from a company founded by someone who refused to accept "that's just how it is" as an answer.
Livia still reads customer emails personally. She still asks to see photos when something isn't right. She still believes — deeply — that jewelry should love you back.
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