A Guide to White Gold Jewellery

White gold began to be fashionable in the 1920’s when Platinum, a more expensive metal, began to grow in popularity. White gold is not a naturally occurring metal it is formed from yellow gold and a range of other metals. The process of combining the metals is called alloying. Gold is used in jewellery because it has amazing and unique metallurgic properties. It has high reflective qualities creating its iconic sheen. Two other properties are ductility and malleability, which allow one gram of gold to be beaten out into a sheet measuring one square meter. As gold is so malleable it needs to be alloyed so that it is strong enough to be used in jewellery. Fortunately gold takes very well to alloying.

The carat rating of gold is a description of its purity. In England we commonly use 9 and 18 carat gold, the most popular carat in America is 14, in Eastern countries 22 carat gold is preferred. 24 carat (completely pure) gold is typically used only for banking and investment purposes. White gold is also measured by carat; all gold for jewellery is alloyed so for white gold the measurement and purity of the gold as defined by its carat is no different. The main difference is likely to be in the price, in order to create white gold yellow gold must be alloyed with specific metals.

Nickel used to be used to create white gold. It is rarely used today because many people find that it causes allergic reactions, normally in the form of a rash. Nickel was often used in the 1920’s because it was a cheap metal that successfully bleached gold.

Silver is inexpensive in comparison to gold. Unfortunately it does not have a good bleaching effect. It is easy to work with so often silver will be one of the metals that is used in the alloying process.

Palladium is a more expensive product than gold, but it performs well as a white gold alloy. The drawbacks are its high melting point and the cost.

The final part of the process, for most white gold jewellery, is rhodium plating. Rhodium is a more expensive metal than gold, but it has a very bright appearance and is highly reflective which makes white gold more desirable. Rhodium plating wears off, so any white gold product needs to be re-rhodium plated at varying intervals depending on wear.

The production of white gold jewellery is a more costly process than the production of similar yellow gold jewellery hence why it is generally a more expensive product. When white gold jewellery became popular in the 1920’s it was due to its visual similarity to platinum, which is an even more expensive product. Plus platinum is harder to work with and costs more to process and refine.

It is important to be careful with your white gold jewellery. Under no circumstances should you put it into silver dip. It is likely to react badly with the chemicals and come out looking black. The best thing to do is to gently polish it with a silver polishing cloth. The other thing that will need to be done regularly, is that it will need to be re-rhodiumed to keep it looking new. Earrings and necklaces will often not need to be re-plated, but if you have a white gold ring or a white gold bracelet that you often wear it is likely that it will need to be re-rhodiumed on a fairly regular basis due to constant friction and knocking.