About BodyGems
History
Body Gems is a family business that was founded in 1994. The Collins family has been in the jewelry business since the mid 1970s. The vision of Body Gems came from Jack Collins who witnessed a line out the door of a local piercing studio in 1994. Jack noticed the type of metal they were using in everyone’s piercings and told his son Scott that they should make all of the basic styles in gold. (Light bulb moment)
Scott went on to make Captive Bead Rings, Straight Barbells, Curved Barbells, and Circular Barbells in 14kt gold. Scott began to provide local studios with gold body jewelry. This was not an easy feat as many studios were not interested in gold at that time for piercings. Scott hit the road, knocked on doors and introduced the Body Gems line in person to hundreds of studios across America for a few years in the 90s. He continued to put his heart and soul into the business into the mid 2000’s. Since the beginning, Body Gems has released about 10 catalogs and now ships “Gold Body Jewelry With Style” all over the world.
In 2001 Scott’s youngest son Josh joined the Body Gems team. Since then, Josh has taken over and runs Body Gems with the assistance of his mother/Scott’s wife Cheryl.
Design Inspiration
We currently have the 4th generation of the family having input on ideas for designs. Our popular LunEAR was inspired by Julia Collins, Josh’s daughter, who was only 3 years old at the time. She had an obsession with the moon and would have to see it every night she could prior to falling asleep. There was so much talk about moons, Josh came up with the idea to make a moon for ever increasingly popular Daith piercing. And so the LunEAR was born.
We also have some popular “Relic” design tops that were inspired by Josh’s son Drew Collins. Drew had a period of time where he really enjoyed watching a pirate show. Josh would watch this show with his son frequently. So much so, it inspired him to come up with some items that resembled pirates gold. And so the Relic design tops were born.
Our Staff
Our staff injects lots of personality here at Body Gems central. At some point, the mutual love for cats of the crew spawned into “Meow-er hour” at 3pm each day and the employees began to meow. All of this meowing mayhem inspired Josh to create our popular “Meow” ring. And so the Meow ring was born and has been a hit since we introduced it in 2015.
Our Customers
We have some of the best and loyal customers we can ask for. Our frequent conversations and dialogue with our customers often inspire us to come up with new designs on a regular basis. Example: One specific week in 2015, we must have had 3-4 people ask if we had any elephant jewelry. We figured if that many independent requests for an elephant was to occur in one week, we should oblige and make one. And so the DT118 elephant design top was born.
