15 Brands Like Ask and Embla for Alternative Jewelry
Stretched lobes and healed helix piercings narrow your shopping down fast. Most jewelry brands stop at a stud and a hoop for a standard lobe, so a search that starts at Ask and Embla tends to end in a pile of pretty pendants and nothing that threads.
Ask and Embla sells rings, clickers, plugs, tunnels, charms and lobe cuffs in 14K solid gold, 925 sterling silver, titanium, stainless steel and brass. Its store prices in USD, with the Anomaly II necklace at $179 and the Anomaly bracelet at $89. The naming comes out of Norse myth, where Ask and Embla were the first two humans.
We read 15 alternatives off their own sites this week. One of them, Maria Black, runs piercing studios and sells piercing jewelry, so it's the only straight swap here. The other 14 are jewelry brands that match Ask and Embla on price or on attitude and not on hardware, and each section says which.
Every figure below came from the brand's own product page or product feed. Where a store blocked us, the row carries a tier and a note instead of a number.
Quick comparison:
- Closest match: Maria Black, the only brand here selling piercing jewelry and piercing appointments.
- Cheapest way in: Lili Claspe from $55, Catbird at $68 for solid gold, Mejuri and Luv Aj from $98 and $100.
- Same price band as Ask and Embla: Mejuri, Missoma, Lili Claspe, Omi Woods, Luv Aj.
- Most premium: Tiffany & Co., CVC Stones, Sophie Buhai, Loren Stewart, Aurate.
- Specialist picks: Vrai and Aurate for lab-created diamonds, Wwake for single studs, Rachel Comey for sculptural chokers, Omi Woods for heritage motifs, Sophie Buhai for heavy silver.
| Brand | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Catbird | $68 for the Threadbare Gold Stacking Ring | Solid recycled gold you can stack four deep |
| Mejuri | $98 to $648 on solid gold | A first piece of 10k or 14k gold under $150 |
| Missoma | £85 to £198 on the pieces we read | UK shoppers who want vermeil, not plate |
| Lili Claspe | $55 to $125 on charms and chains | Building a charm-heavy stack cheaply |
| Vrai | $345 to $5,230 on necklaces | Lab-created diamonds with a certificate |
| Rachel Comey | $85 to $1,295 on jewelry | Sculptural brass and acrylic with real weight |
| Maria Black | Premium (price unchecked, site blocked) | Actual piercing jewelry and a piercing appointment |
| Omi Woods | $114 to $161 on the pieces we read | Africana and Caribbean heritage motifs |
| Loren Stewart | $640 to $1,650 on the pieces we read | One heavy gold piece instead of five light ones |
| Tiffany & Co. | Luxury (price unchecked, site blocked) | A gemstone brooch with a name attached |
| Wwake | $200 to $450 on earrings | Tiny stones set off-centre and off-grid |
| CVC Stones | $2,900 to $5,800 on the pieces we read | Stone-and-gold pieces made in New York |
| Aurate | $1,498 to $2,638 on full-price lab diamonds | Lab diamonds, if you shop the markdown rail |
| Luv Aj | $100 to $225 on the pieces we read | Body chains and tennis pieces under $250 |
| Sophie Buhai | $1,600 to $4,900 on the pieces we read | Heavy sterling silver that reads as sculpture |
Catbird
Catbird has been designing in Brooklyn since 2004 and says its jewelry is made from over 95% recycled gold. The Threadbare Gold Stacking Ring is $68 in 100% recycled solid 14k yellow gold, which is the cheapest solid gold on this list.
Threadbare is the reason people start here. It's a hair-thin band meant to be worn four or five to a hand, so a $68 entry price turns into a stack you add to over years instead of one purchase you agonise over.
Catbird sits closer to Ask and Embla on philosophy than on product. Both sell small, repeatable pieces designed to accumulate. Catbird has no piercing hardware, so a healed conch or a stretched lobe gets nothing here.
Best for: solid gold you can stack four deep without a four-figure bill.
Mejuri
Mejuri is the easiest place on this list to buy a first piece of solid gold. Its solid gold range starts at $98 for the Small Hoops and the Single Bar Chain Stud, both 10k yellow gold, and the Between Hoops are $118.
Above that, the Large Hoops are $148, the Bold Huggie Hoops are $268, and the Spheres Chain Bracelet is $228 in 10k or $278 in 14k. The Pavé Diamond Linked Necklace tops the range we read at $648 in 14k with natural diamonds.
Mejuri also works in sterling silver, lab-grown sapphires and diamonds, and it runs a tiered spend discount on the site (15% off at $150, 20% at $300, 25% at $500). If you're used to Ask and Embla's $89 to $179 band, Mejuri's 10k pieces land in almost the same place.
Best for: a first solid gold hoop under $150.
Missoma
Missoma is a London brand and prices in pounds, which matters if you were converting Ask and Embla's dollar prices in your head. The Double Chain Necklace is £198 in 18ct gold plated vermeil and £189 in sterling silver.
Cheaper entry points exist. The Chubby Tunnel Huggies are £85, the Savi Signature Open Ring is £105, and the Lucy Williams Medium Knot Hoop Earrings are £115. Missoma's own site says every piece carries a two year warranty, which is a longer commitment than most brands at this price make in writing.
Vermeil is thicker gold over silver than standard plating, so it holds up better on a piece worn daily. Missoma has no piercing category and no titanium, so this is a fashion-jewelry swap rather than a hardware one.
Best for: UK shoppers buying in pounds who want vermeil over plate.
Lili Claspe
Lili Claspe is a Los Angeles brand and the cheapest way on this list to build a charm-led stack. The Large Cleo Oval Charm is $55, the Small Bruna Anklet is $70, and the Small Imara Studs are $75.
The Medium Bruna Pear Necklace is $125, which is where the range settles for a finished piece rather than a component. With 214 products on the site, the catalogue is small enough to read in a sitting.
Charms are the overlap with Ask and Embla, which sells 78 of them. Lili Claspe's read softer and more decorative, closer to a beach stack than a hardware one, so the aesthetic shifts even where the format matches.
Best for: a charm-heavy stack you can start under $100.
Vrai
Vrai sells lab-created diamonds and says so plainly, describing its stones as created rather than mined and certifying them rather than reporting a GIA grade. On necklaces, the Petite Solitaire Pendant is $345 and the Inner Light Medallion is $460.
The VRAI Solitaire Necklace starts at $550 in yellow gold, the Knife-Edge Baguette Semi-Bezel Necklace at $575, and the Signature Pear Drop Necklace at $1,035. The Tennis Necklace Petite runs from $5,230, which is the ceiling on that page.
This is a jump in price from Ask and Embla, and what you get for it is a stone with paperwork. Vrai's range is bridal-weighted, so the everyday pieces are a smaller part of the site than the engagement rings.
Best for: a certified lab-created diamond without the mined-stone premium.
Rachel Comey
Rachel Comey is a New York clothing label whose jewelry collection runs 74 pieces from $85 to $1,295. Cuba Earrings are $85, Draped Baguette Earrings $155, Beam Gem Earrings $175 in acrylic, and the Large Keel Hoops $275.
The chokers and collars are the closest thing on this list to Ask and Embla's attitude. The Lars Collar and the Pirate Choker are both $195, the Keeper Choker is $225, and the brooches (Plume and Swallow, $195 each) are a shape no other brand on this list stocks.
Worth knowing before you shop: jewelry sits under Accessories on a site that mostly sells clothing, footwear, denim and bags, so the range turns over with the collections rather than staying in production.
Best for: sculptural brass and acrylic with weight to it.
Maria Black
Maria Black is the one brand here that does what Ask and Embla does. It sells piercing jewelry and runs piercing studios, with stores in Copenhagen and Aarhus plus Germany, Japan and Norway, and it takes bookings for a piercing or a free consultation.
The materials line up too. Maria Black states it uses 100% recycled 925 sterling silver and 100% recycled 14K gold, alongside 18K gold plating, white rhodium plating, lab-grown diamonds, cubic zirconia, nanogems, freshwater pearls, ceramics and resin. No third-party certification is named on that page for the recycled claim, so take it as the brand's own statement.
Its product pages load prices through a script we couldn't read, so we've put a tier in the table instead of a number. Expect premium rather than fine-jewelry pricing.
Best for: a Scandinavian brand that sells the piercing and the jewelry.
Omi Woods
Omi Woods is a Toronto brand designing heritage jewelry around Island and Africana motifs, with collections drawn from West Africa, Ancient Egypt and the Caribbean. It prices in USD and says it works in responsibly sourced and recycled gold and silver with natural gemstones.
The Hibiscus Ring is $150, the Nefertiti Pendant $161, the Gye Nyame Adinkra Pendant I $144, and the Hibiscus Mini Stud Earrings $114. Pieces are handmade to order on a three to five week timeline, so this doesn't work as a last-minute buy.
Where Ask and Embla draws on Norse myth, Omi Woods draws on Adinkra symbols and Egyptian iconography. Same instinct, different source. North American shipping is free over $350 USD.
Best for: symbolic jewelry with a heritage behind the shape.
Loren Stewart
Loren Stewart is a Los Angeles brand for people who'd take one heavy gold piece over five light ones. The Sable Necklace is $860 and the Half Moon Locket Pendant is the same.
Earrings start higher than most of this list. Stone Capsule Hoops are $640, the Mini Half Moon Lock Hoops are $1,020, and the Mixed Metal Half Moon Locket Pendant is $1,650. The Poet Y Pearl Necklace sits at $835.
The lockets are the draw, and they're the design idea Ask and Embla shoppers tend to respond to: a piece that holds something. Loren Stewart has 521 products on the site and no piercing category, so it's a fine-jewelry step up rather than a like-for-like move.
Best for: one gold locket you wear daily for a decade.
Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany & Co. is the luxury end of this list, and its site blocked our reads with a 403, so we haven't put a price against it. What we can say is what the brand is known for, which is coloured gemstone and diamond work in a house style people recognise on sight.
Brooches and gemstone pieces are the part of the Tiffany catalogue that overlaps with Ask and Embla's instinct for a single statement object rather than a matching set. Everything else about the two brands is different, starting with a price gap of several orders of magnitude.
Treat this as the aspirational row. We compared the top of the market in jewelry brands like Cartier and Tiffany if that's the direction you're heading.
Best for: a gemstone piece with a name attached to it.
Wwake
Wwake is a Brooklyn brand that sets small stones off-centre, which is a rarer idea than it sounds in a market built on symmetry. Its earrings run from $200 for the Small Pearl Clover Stitch Earring to $450 for the Pearl Petal Earring.
Between those, the Large Pearl Clover Stitch Earring is $250, the Pearl Hitch Earring $385, and the Pearl Trellis Earring $400. Wwake also sells loose certified diamonds, GIA and IGI graded, which we saw priced from $1,000 for a 0.32ct pear up to $7,040 for a 1.5ct emerald cut.
The single-stud pricing is the practical bit for a multi-piercing ear. You buy one earring at a time here, which is how anyone with four holes shops anyway.
Best for: mismatched single studs for a stacked ear, bought one at a time.
CVC Stones
CVC Stones sets natural stones into 18k gold and says the pieces are handcrafted in New York City. The Lily and the Hibiscus are both $2,900, the Africa is $3,900, and the Flamingo is $4,500.
Higher up, the Ceramic is $5,100 and the Majestic is $5,800. The catalogue runs to 172 products across necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, chokers, cufflinks and clip-on earrings, so the clip-ons are an option if a piercing has closed.
The stone-forward look is the connection to Ask and Embla. Both build a piece around a single object rather than a pattern. The price gap is the obstacle, since CVC Stones starts around sixteen times Ask and Embla's $179 necklace.
Best for: a stone-and-gold statement piece made in New York.
Aurate
Aurate, which trades as Aurate New York, works mostly in lab-grown diamonds and gold and lists 927 products. The 1ct Round Lab Grown Diamond Georgian Ring is $1,498 at full price, the 1ct Round Lab Grown Diamond Eternity Ring is $1,648, and the 2ct Emerald Lab Grown Diamond Solitaire Ring is $2,638.
Read the price twice before you buy. When we counted Aurate's feed this week, 5,674 of 18,657 variants carried a compare-at figure above the selling price, so roughly three in ten listings were showing a markdown. The figures above are the ones with no compare-at price attached, which makes them the real list prices.
That pattern cuts both ways for a shopper. The discounts are genuine money off, and the size or stone you want may only be cheap in the combination the brand is clearing. We went through the range in jewelry brands like Aurate.
Best for: lab diamonds, if you'll shop the markdown rail patiently.
Luv Aj
Luv Aj is a West Hollywood brand and the closest thing here to Ask and Embla's body jewelry, because it sells belly chains. The 24/7 Flex Tennis Bracelet is $225 and the 24/7 Flex Eternity Band is $100.
The Initial Charm Bellychain was selling at $395 when we read it, against an $800 list price, so that row moves. With 1,164 products the catalogue is the largest on this list, and the discounting is heavy enough that a price you see today is worth checking again.
Know what you're buying at that price. The 24/7 Flex pieces sit in Luv Aj's brass collection, and the brand's own product pages say it uses IP plating with at least 0.1 micron of 18K gold or silver plus an e-coating, and that the plating should last at least a year with regular wear. A separate fine line runs in 14K, where the Pia Studs are $700. If your Ask and Embla pieces are the steel and titanium end rather than the 14K end, this matches on cost.
Best for: belly chains and tennis pieces under $250.
Sophie Buhai
Sophie Buhai works in heavy sterling silver and treats jewelry as small sculpture. The Oaxaca Collar is $1,600, and it's the piece that put the Los Angeles brand on people's lists.
The catalogue goes past jewelry into objects. The Dragonfly Cigarette Holder is $3,700, the sterling silver Scarab Pill Box is $3,800, and the Perfume Vial is $4,900 in sterling silver or in onyx paired with quartz or jade.
Silver as the main metal rather than the cheap option is the shared instinct with Ask and Embla, which builds a good part of its range in 925. Sophie Buhai does it at a far higher price and in a much heavier gauge, so the pieces sit on the body differently.
Best for: one silver collar that reads as sculpture across a room.
Which of These Replaces the Hardware and Which Replaces the Price
If you came for the hardware, go to Maria Black and stop. It's the only brand on this list selling piercing jewelry and piercing appointments, and its recycled silver and 14K gold match what Ask and Embla uses.
If you came for the price band, Mejuri and Luv Aj land closest. Ask and Embla runs roughly $89 to $179 on the pieces we read, and both of those brands cover it, Mejuri in 10k solid gold and Luv Aj in plating.
The attitude is harder to buy than either of those. Rachel Comey's chokers and collars and Sophie Buhai's silver are the two pieces of this list that carry weight instead of sparkle, and both cost several times what a comparable Ask and Embla piece does.
To stay on the body-jewelry side of the market entirely, our list of jewelry brands like BVLA is the better next stop, and brands like Clocks and Colours covers the bolder, heavier end.
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Written by
Spencer Lanoue
