Through having our jewellery made by skilled artisans in Jaipur, I have learnt a lot about gold plating and the difference between the variations of plating available.
When I first decided to start a jewellery company, I had no idea about the vast differences in gold plating quality and how some jewellery companies really do cheat customers into thinking they are buying a quality product with misleading product descriptions or lack of product details. I bought a friend a pair of heart earrings for her birthday, they were bought from a reputable store with a product description that made me feel they were worth the money I paid. So I was very suprised to see that through fairly minimal wear, the gold plating tarnished quite quickly and revealed that the base metal was actually brass not silver. The product description of gold plated earrings, was not wrong, but through lack of information was misleading to what I believed was a quality product.
If you are a fan of gold jewellery, obviously the most ideal buying choice would be real gold, but at the current gold value (Dec 2023) of around £52 (USD $66) per gram (this is what jewellers pay not the customer), it is not suitable for everyones budget. So gold plated jewellery has long been the most popular choice for buyers on a budget. Visually you cannot see any difference between real gold and gold plated jewellery.
With any type of plating, you still need to take care of your jewellery, by not wearing pieces in the shower or at the gym or spraying perfume etc on your jewellery. A lot of retailers tend to put the onus on you, telling you that if your jewellery has tarnished quickly is because you are not looking after it, however, it can be because the quality of plating they have used is very low.
To explain, these are the 3 most common types of gold plating available:
Flash
Most large jewellery companies that sell jewellery at a low price (or sometimes not so low!), flash plate pieces with a minimum amount of gold. Gold plating is usually measured in microns. What's a Micron? A micron is 0.001 of a millimetre thick.
The artisans I work with call flash plating, "gold water", as the layer of gold is so thin, it won't take a long time to wear through to the base metal beneath. No jeweller would mention the words flash on the description of the jewellery, but if it says "gold plated" it could well be flash. Flash plating is usually about 0.175 microns of gold and is rarely on a base of sterling silver.
Ultimately, jewellery with flash plating contributes to the unsustainable fast fashion culture, where pieces are worn for very short periods of time and then discarded because of tarnishing.
Gold Plated
Standard gold plated jewellery is usually 0.5 of gold or below. Still a fairly minimal layer and will not withstand constant wear for a long period of time without showing some signs of tarnishing.
Rize Gold Plating and Gold Vermeil
The best plating option for affordable jewellery that is not pure gold, is either a minimum of 1 micron gold plating or gold vermeil. This is a heavy plating of gold on what has to be on a sterling silver base by law. This thicker gold plating enables the jewellery to be worn often without rapid tarnishing effects if looked after properly.
So you can see the difference in plating quality between flash and vermeil.
Flash plated - 0.175mc
Standard gold plated - standard 0.5mc and below
Thicker gold plated - 1mc
Gold vermeil - 2.5mc
Always read the jewellery descriptions online or check with the retailer or your jeweller about the type of plating and the micron levels. I did just this in a well known high street jewellery store and when I mentioned microns they didn't have a clue what I was talking about!
All our jewellery here at Rize is mostly made from sustainable recycled sterling silver with a few pieces premium brass based. Our 22 karat gold plated pieces are either gold vermeil (2.5 microns) or gold plated (1 micron) in order to keep pieces affordable for our customers. All product pages have clear descriptions indicating materials used.