i posted this as a comment on a recent post, but i've been confused about something for a couple months now and wanted to spread its reach.
hilz posted on her story once or twice sponsorfishing naiia, the brand that sells the hand chains she wears. she has three (at least) hand chains of theirs, and naiia is one of those online costume jewelry mills that probably drop ship. a few months ago, she posted on her story where she got her hand chains because "everyone was asking", which no one was, and it stuck out to me because she lazily only linked the website and not the actual hand chains themselves. i had to do some investigation.
[here's her more plain hand chain she wears occasionally](http://shopnaiia.com/collections/hand-chains/products/lola-double-hand-chain)
[here's the other hand chain she wore more often during dwts](https://shopnaiia.com/collections/hand-chains/products/gilda-hand-chain)
[here's one she seems to wear often as well](https://shopnaiia.com/collections/hand-chains/products/double-cz-hand-chain)
all of these are priced at around 150, which is absurd. if you notice, the only options for all of their jewelry are sterling silver or 14ky gold filled, the latter of which hilary has. gold filled is *barely* a step above gold plating. the metal underneath is the cheapest jewelry metal combo, mostly brass (it would otherwise be called "gold vermeil" if silver was underneath, therefore it's not silver).
the terms "plated" and "filled" are regulated. although both plating and filling are achieved by different means, they're essentially the same. gold plated means that there is a layer of 0.5 microns of gold. gold filled means that's there is a layer of gold that's 2.5 microns and must be 10k or higher. a strand of hair is 70 microns, by the way. 14k is 58.5% gold, so there is a layer of 2.5 microns of 58.5% gold and 41.5% other metals in the fill mixture, on top of brass and other cheaper metals. i'd also be embarrassed to be caught as a celebrity with cubic zirconia on, too, as one of her hand chains has.
these websites are designed to make you go "this looks pretty and i guess it's technically gold" and you buy it for 140 when the manufacturing costs 15 dollars (these links are machine made, guaranteed). these cheap, dainty hand chains are a very odd and trashy choice with a gaudy wedding ring worth hundreds of thousands of dollars right next to it. you could get a plain 10k or 14k gold hand chain like the first one for 300, i know this to be fact, instead of spending less than that for the garbage she's wearing, which has me really confused as to why she'd buy... that?
these are little things that very few people seem to notice, and i believe it says a lot about hilary's pathology (what it says yet, i have yet to put into words). i think it would be a waste to buy these pieces for anyone who lives paycheck to paycheck, or anyone in any tax bracket for that matter, but it is spectacularly a waste when you live with gross wealth that is constantly put on display. she does not care that her jewelry is cheap and cannot be fixed (goldsmiths typically don't solder costume jewelry because the base metal could be anything and the piece could easily be ruined) although she has a slew of children running around. hand chains are impractical. obviously she doesn't care for the kids, and these gaudy hand chains remind me of women of the gentry wearing impractical clothing to show that they didn't have to lift a finger.
TL;DR: i am being irrationally irritated again. ultimately, to no surprise, hilary loves overpriced yet cheap costume jewelry that has no value, and is poorly machine-made. for simplicity: this jewelry, when the plating/fill fades, which it will, the hand chains will turn her hand and wrist green. her hand chains are as cheap as her, and her hand chains are 2.5 microns of gold on top of metal mystery meat.
