Gold-Plated Jewelry - What is Worth Knowing?

Gold-plated jewelry is an alternative for gold jewelry when you do not want to invest too much money in accessories.

And now a few words about the process called gold plating. What is it, and what are the characteristics of the decorations made in this way? Gold-plated jewelry is usually made of silver. Then it is covered with a thin layer of gold up to 0.5 microns wide. As gold is a relatively soft metal, alloys of gold with other metals are used in the gold plating process. This solution makes the gold-plated layer harder and more durable, and less resistant to abrasion.

The amount of gold in the gold-plating alloy, as well as the type of metal used as an admixture, directly affect the color of the finished product. If silver is used for the production of gold-plated jewelry, the finished adornment has a fineness of silver, most often with a value of 925. The entire production process of such jewelry is a bit complicated and consists of many stages. As a result, we get beautiful accessories that resemble 100% gold products.

How to care of gold-plated jewelry

In order for gold-plated jewelry to serve you for years and to remain unchanged, you should take care of it with caution. It is worth getting a special cloth, intended for polishing jewelry. The cloth must be dry, and you should clean your gold-plated accessories gently . In principle, contact with water should be avoided, and jewelry should not be taken in the bathtub or in the pool. Commonly used cleaning agents, especially chlorine, can destroy the gold coating and cause discoloration and blackening.

It is also worth getting a jewelry box for storage. It should be padded with a soft fabric. Likewise, it would also be great if it had compartments and drawers so that you could keep each piece of jewelry separate from the rest of the jewelry. Under no circumstances should you keep jewelry in the bathroom. The humidity there can quickly destroy jewelries.