Fashion Meets Function With Chewable Jewelry
Babies’ proclivity to chew has launched thousands of products, the latest being a unique blend of mommy ingenuity, fashion and dental science.
Launched in November, Dr. Bloom’s Chewable Jewels were created by entrepreneurs: Kalamazoo native Mary Settlemier, Joy Bloom Wright and her sister, Dr. Helen Bloom Smith. The product line includes durable necklaces and bracelets designed to be worn by mom and gnawed by babies. They retail from $15.95 to $19.95.The Bloom sisters conceived of the product after Smith, a dental student at the time, noticed her twin nephews chewing on glass beaded jewelry. She worried about damage to the boys’ teeth and resolved to find her sister some safe, attractive jewelry that the babies could mouth. Her search came up empty, and the idea for Chewable Jewels took root.
The product is made from 100 percent silicone — the same material used to make the nipples of baby bottles and pacifiers. The contents are FDA-approved and contain no PVC, phthalates, latex, lead or Bisphenol A (BPA).
“People can say they’re giving you something safe, but you always want the material data safety sheet to really tell you that,” said Wright. “We go a step further, and have our products third-party tested. As mothers, we feel really strongly about that.”
It took several years to find the right consistency for the jewelry — hard enough to ease teething pain and appease the urge to chew, but soft enough to prevent any damage to tooth buds.
The founders also have fashion in mind. The necklaces come with a stretchable cord, but Settlemier says a lot of women wear them on a ribbon or their own chain. She wears a blue topaz pendant on a silver chain, and her 7-year-old daughter loves to wear the jewelry too.
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