White Gold -- The Perfect Choice for Jewelry

Yellow gold is more often what we think of when we consider gold jewelry. However, since the beginning of the twentieth century another form of gold, namely white gold, has also gained importance from a jewelry perspective. This has the appearance of silver but the extravagance of being gold and was extremely popular in the 1920s art deco jewelry pieces. Its importance has grown even more so over the last twenty years as people have tired of yellow gold and looked for a classy alternative. When set with other stones such as diamonds white gold actually gives a much better scintillation than its counterpart yellow gold; however, without the extra price tag of platinum, another silver colored metal popular in jewelry.

The white gold used in jewelry is generally all 18 k; however, unlike yellow gold it is alloyed with white metals to ensure the end product is white as opposed to yellow. 18 k means that it is 75% pure gold and 25% other white metal. This does not make it any less gold than yellow gold which is also created from being alloyed with other metals. In its purest state gold is simply too malleable and soft to use to make jewelry. Alloys are used in order to make the gold more capable of being used in creating jewelry. For some that have allergies to nickel a white gold made from a palladium alloy may be preferable. A professional jeweler should be able to tell you the exact nature of the white gold in any pieces you are interested in purchasing.

To increase the whiteness of the end product white gold is then coated with Rhodium. This plating can wear off slightly over time; however, re-plating is an easy process. Lower quality white gold is generally alloyed with a cheaper metal such as nickel whereas a higher quality white gold will be mixed with palladium. The former is much more prone to losing its Rhodium plating within a short period of time such as six months and it will then need to be re-plated whereas the latter higher quality white gold could last as much as 3 years without needing to be re-rhodium plated.

It is the case though that often the choice of metal which is used to create white gold is not just due to price but may also be dependent on the jewelry piece to be created. A white gold alloy made with nickel is much stronger as nickel is a stronger metal. This is therefore really good for making jewelry pieces such as wedding bands which need to be strong. Palladium on the other hand is a much more flexible metal. This makes for a good white gold alloy for settings for gems such as diamonds that need to be a bit more malleable for the jewelry designer to work with.

If you feel that your white gold jewelry has become dulled it is easy to get a jeweler to put another rhodium coating over it to bring it back to its shiny white gold state.

If you prefer the look of yellow gold but want to have the benefits of scintillation for diamond jewelry that white gold provides it is possible to have the actual band itself of a ring made from the yellow gold and then just the setting made from white gold. This gives you the best of both worlds and is a technique increasingly used by jewelers when working with diamond jewelry.

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