Reasons for yellowing of white gold and how to care for it

Decorations

• Alloy composition
• Why does white gold turn yellow?
• What products should not be used to clean white gold?
• How to care for white gold?

Jewelry made from ordinary gold has not surprised anyone for a long time, so products made from white precious metal are becoming increasingly popular.

This type of gold looks like silver or platinum, but has the ability to change color. Such changes can be noticed after 2-3 years: the gold begins to turn yellow, which gives the jewelry a careless appearance. However, not everyone knows why this happens and how to prevent it.

Adele in white gold and diamond earrings

How to distinguish white gold from silver?

Silver and white gold are some of the most popular metals for creating jewelry. Outwardly, they are very similar, and therefore the question often arises of how to distinguish one from the other. And this can be done in several ways, which will be discussed in the article.

How to avoid darkening of the skin?

The most important tip is to buy jewelry from reputable stores. This way you will be sure of the quality of both the jewelry alloy and the decoration. Remember: jewelry of poor quality can be returned at any time, especially if you have kept tags, receipts and other evidence of purchase.

If you bought a ring second-hand at a ridiculous price, and even from a representative of a well-known nomadic people, you should not be surprised at the darkening of the ring: it is unlikely that there is even a drop of gold or silver in it. Today's craftsmen have learned to forge even hallmarks, so you can only trust reputable official sellers.

The remaining recommendations are related primarily to the operation and storage of jewelry:

• Store jewelry in a dry, ventilated area, away from heat sources, in a personal box. Jewelry should be protected from direct sunlight and dampness, stored in individual compartments, and not mixed together.
• Don't wear rings all the time. Even the wedding ring should be removed periodically (at night, on hot days, during hygiene procedures and training) - this will definitely not harm the strength of your marriage. But you will restore normal blood circulation and reduce the risk of damage to the jewelry.
• Clean your jewelry periodically. It is quite possible that it is not the quality of the product that is to blame for the appearance of dark marks on the skin, but your own carelessness. Particular attention should be paid to jewelry that you wear constantly or store for a long time in unsuitable conditions.

Be careful: the finger may darken because the tight ring prevents normal blood circulation. Blackening is, of course, an extreme, but if the finger swells and takes on a bluish tint, the jewelry should be immediately removed by any means.

Features of white metals

It is possible to extract pure gold or silver only in a laboratory. Natural nuggets contain a lot of impurities and are very soft.

By mixing various components, you can get white gold. In addition to the classic yellow metal, it contains silver, platinum, nickel, zinc, and palladium. Zinc and nickel are added extremely rarely, as they can cause allergies if the jewelry is worn for too long.

To make silver jewelry more hard and so that it does not lose its shape, it contains copper. Additives from other, harder metals make the final product harder.

The process of yellowing of products and restoration methods

Products made from white material are resistant to deformation and retain an attractive appearance thanks to the addition of a solid ligature.

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For what reasons and why does white gold turn yellow? Jewelry made from different grades of material is coated with rhodium. The metal film provides the composition with additional wear resistance, hardness, and gives a silvery tint.

Many alloys contain silver, which reacts with oxygen. Over time, such a product darkens, so the surface of the product is plated with rhodium.

The essence of the method is the process of electrolysis under the influence of electric current. Jewelry coated in this way will retain its appearance for a long time.

Using the immersion method in a special solution is cheap and easy to implement. At the same time, the rhodium layer does not always cover the product evenly, and it also tends to wear off quickly.

In many cases, jewelry loses its former appearance during use, resulting in a yellowish layer of alloy being revealed under the coating. This can happen if you wear jewelry for a long time.

To ensure that jewelry remains white and maintains its original appearance for a long time, careful handling is required. When caring for products, it is not recommended to:

• use soda and aggressive substances for cleaning;
• grind and polish jewelry.

The greatest danger is perchloric acid, so it is better to take off your jewelry when going to the shower or swimming pool. This also applies to washing dishes and cleaning using detergents.

The effect of yellowing is observed on the surface of products made from a noble alloy with the addition of silver and copper. The presence of defects does not indicate a decrease in the value of the jewelry.

When storing jewelry, you need to adhere to basic rules and avoid close contact with other metals. It is not recommended to clean the tarnished surface yourself.

What to do if white gold turns yellow? To restore the previous appearance of products, it is better to contact a jewelry workshop. Experienced craftsmen restore the surface and re-treat it with rhodium.

It is advisable to clean your jewelry regularly and carefully. This will prevent the jewelry from oxidizing and will maintain its attractive appearance for a long time. But don’t be upset if the product has already turned black. Powder, detergent and even salt will help restore something dear to your heart.

If there is no need to rush, it is enough to soak oxidizing precious jewelry overnight in a solution of soda or table salt. In the morning, they are washed with warm water, lightly dried with a soft cloth and wiped with a lint-free towel.

White gold

In some cases, cleaning white gold at home is strictly prohibited or impossible. For example, yellowed jewelry can only be restored to its original appearance in a galvanic workshop. Blackened white gold is restored by polishing, but at home it is almost impossible to carefully polish the product without disturbing the plating.

If we are talking about cleaning simple stains, it is better to use one of the methods listed above. You should be careful with ammonia and soda: both methods are classified as potent.

Gold with stones

The peculiarity of the procedure will be some unacceptable actions:

• Do not boil or use brushes;
• wipe jewelry with sponges using powders;
• Do not use corrosive preparations to clean items containing pearls;
• The use of soda and vinegar is not recommended.

Otherwise, the same cleaning methods are used for inlaid jewelry as for ordinary precious items.

Gilded

Gold-plated items, like any plating jewelry, must be cleaned very carefully. Polishing work is strictly prohibited at home. Powders and toothpaste should not be used. As a rule, gold-plated items can only be washed in mild soap solutions or soaked in weak solutions of baking soda - no more than ½ teaspoon per glass of warm water.

Medical gold

Medical alloy, better known to consumers as jewelry alloy, belongs to a special category of jewelry, the cleaning of which must be carried out as carefully as possible. What you should definitely give up is chalk, tooth powder and products with large particles. All this can damage the spray.

Mild soap solutions without long soaking or boiling are best. The products are also wiped with a napkin soaked in vinegar or beer. This will return the oxidizing product to its original shine.

Advantages and disadvantages

Silver has several advantages, the main one being its affordable price. Given the large selection, you can always find exactly the product you want. In addition, this metal is believed to have healing properties. It relieves stress, heals and cleanses a person.

But, in addition to its advantages, this metal has a significant drawback, namely, darkening (oxidation). Because of this, wearing it every day will not work, at least during illness or stressful situations. But if you want to wear it constantly, you will have to clean the product very often. This can be done both with folk remedies and with special ready-made formulations that are sold in every jewelry store.

Compared to silver, white gold does not require constant cleaning and can be worn constantly.

In addition, it is much stronger, which allows you to make much more spectacular and sophisticated jewelry from this metal.

Methods for cleaning blackened gold

In order to return a gold item to its original pure color and sparkling shine, it needs to be cleaned.

1. You can remove darkening from gold and gold-plated jewelry using a 25% aqueous ammonia solution. The liquid is poured into a glass container and the blackened gold is completely immersed in it. A strong ammonia solution has a pungent odor, so before cleaning jewelry, your respiratory tract should be protected with a respirator. After 10 minutes, the product must be removed from the container and rinsed thoroughly under warm running water.
2. If the jewelry is made of low-grade gold, then a solution prepared from 4 drops of ammonia, half a teaspoon of washing powder that does not contain bleach particles, and a tablespoon of water will help rid it of blackening. Rub the gold item with the resulting solution, after half an hour it is washed under water and rubbed with a piece of flannel.

3. Coca-Cola dissolves dark deposits from jewelry

   The familiar Coca-Cola can clean gold. Place the decoration in a glass of drink for half an hour and then rinse it under the tap. After such manipulations, the darkened product begins to look like new.

4. If the gold has turned black, then the following method will help: soak a cotton pad generously in table vinegar and wrap the jewelry in it. After a quarter of an hour, the disc is removed and the item is washed.
5. You can remove darkening from gilding using a mixture of egg white and beer (for 1 white you need to take 1 tablespoon of intoxicating drink). Moisten a piece of flannel cloth in the resulting mixture and wipe the surface of the decoration with it.
6. How else to clean gold? To do this, you can use regular women's lipstick. Titanium dioxide powder, which is one of the components of modern lip care cosmetics, is one of the most delicate abrasives and effectively fights darkening. Simply apply a little lipstick to a piece of dry cloth and wipe the jewelry with it. Remains of cosmetics are washed off the gold with warm water.
7. If the jewelry has darkened, it is recommended to wipe it with freshly squeezed onion juice and then rub it with a piece of woolen cloth.

If the gold jewelry has darkened very much, then conventional cleaning methods will not bring results. In such cases, you will need to use cleaning products that contain abrasive substances. Such products must be used very carefully, since along with blackening they can erase a layer of gold.

It is best to buy them at a jewelry store. If for some reason you cannot purchase a cleaning product, then you can replace it with toothpaste or tooth powder. Apply the paste or powder to a piece of damp flannel cloth and gently rub the product (instead of the cloth, you can use a toothbrush with soft bristles).

After the procedure is completed, the remaining tooth powder or toothpaste is wiped off with a dry cloth, and the gold itself is wiped off with a cotton swab dipped in ethyl alcohol.

How are they visually different?

You can recognize silver and white gold by eye if you put both of these metals in front of you and examine them carefully. This way you can see small differences. The first is that the white gold alloy contains an alloy that gives the metal a more distinct white sheen that silver does not have. This method of checking is simple, but also not always relevant, because it is applicable only to products not coated with radium, which gives silver a bright white color.

In addition, there is a slight difference in the shades of the noble metals themselves. White gold has a slightly golden tint, while silver is completely cool, with a slight gray undertone.

White gold looks like it has a shiny lacquer coating on it, while silver has a matte finish. Gold has many subtle differences that are not characteristic of silver. Even if, under bright lighting of the store counters, these 2 metals are absolutely similar and, at first glance, do not differ, then when the light changes or by simply putting it on the hand, the difference becomes obvious.

Why does the finger under the wedding ring turn black?

At a time when people believed in omens, seeing a black mark from a ring was considered a very bad sign. Today no one believes in such signs, and the blackness is explained by the simple desire of jewelry stores to give their goods a more attractive appearance. For this purpose, products (especially rings) are rubbed with a special polishing paste.

It is this that remains on the skin over time in the form of dark spots, and there is no talk of gold oxidizing.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to correct the laws of physics: alloying metals oxidize. There are only two ways out of this situation: timely coating of gold with appropriate sputtering or choosing samples of classical alloys with a low content of impurities.

How to determine by hardness?

Silver alloy is always softer than gold. The latter, in turn, is much stronger and tougher. Thanks to this fact, it is possible to determine the metal from which a certain product is made. To do this, you only need a piece of paper and a specific decoration that needs to be identified. The hard gold alloy will not harm soft paper and its surface will remain white. If the product is made of silver, then its soft alloy will leave a mark on a sheet of paper.

Why does the gold chain on my neck darken?

There are several reasons why the chain on the neck darkens and oxidizes:

1. cosmetics: milk, creams, powders, etc.
2. perfume or eau de toilette,
3. skin features.

The last reason is the most common. There are hundreds of thousands of sweat-removing pores on the human body, which are responsible for thermoregulation and natural metabolism in the body. The more often an alloyed precious metal is exposed to sweat, the faster it oxidizes. Therefore, the same product serves one owner for a long time and quickly becomes dark for another.

For example, there is a version that gold chains oxidize most quickly in people who eat a lot of meat products. Protein foods contain nitrogen, which, released along with sweat, reacts with alloying additives of gold alloys.

According to another version, gold serves as an indicator of health problems. It is believed that jewelry made from this noble metal oxidizes and darkens if its owner has kidney or liver problems.

How to choose a product made of real metal?

If you do not want to delve into all the subtleties of the differences between the metals described and will not conduct experiments at home, but still need to buy a quality item, then use these simple tips that will help you when choosing jewelry.

• Purchase goods only from large jewelry stores with many years of successful reputation. In such establishments there is very little chance of running into a fake or low-quality product.
• Handmade products are much more difficult to counterfeit than factory stamped products, although they cost many times more. This product is considered a real exclusive.
• Take a magnifying glass with you - it will help you examine the sample on the product, since it is not always possible to see and understand the shape of the mark.

Using these simple rules, you can sort dubious products from those that suit you.

To learn how to distinguish white gold from silver, watch the following video.

Care and storage rules

In order for jewelry to please its owner for a long time, it is necessary to properly care for and store it. Advice from jewelers will help.

1. Keep rings, earrings, crosses, chains and other jewelry away from chlorine and water to prevent oxidation.
2. Each individual piece of jewelry must be stored in an individual box or casket with dividers.
3. You should not wear white gold jewelry on a regular basis, especially if it is created using rhodium.
4. During contact with water, it is better to remove jewelry.
5. You should avoid situations in which the product is injured (cutting, cleaning around the house, etc.).

How are these metals different?

When choosing jewelry from a particular metal, you need to know that they differ not only in color, but also in some characteristics, cost, and markings.

Composition, strength and weight

White gold is obtained by creating an alloy based on yellow metal and a ligature. The latter includes the following elements:

Thanks to the alloy, gold acquires the necessary strength and wear resistance, but at the same time remains quite ductile.

Silver in jewelry is also used in the form of an alloy, to which copper, lead, antimony, oxygen, and bismuth are added. They provide the necessary strength and wear resistance of the alloy. However, if we compare the strength characteristics of precious metals, the advantage will be on the side of gold.

Effect of acidic environment

One of the advantages of white gold over silver is that it is not afraid of acid. That's why one of the most popular ways to test jewelry at home is to dip it in a container of vinegar. If the product contains aurum, it will not change its color.

Silver jewelry will make the liquid cloudy. Because of this reaction, they must be removed before cleaning.

Appearance and markings

White gold has a varnished appearance, while silver metal has a matte finish. With the special lighting available in every jewelry store, the jewelry may shine equally, but when worn, the difference will become more noticeable.

Based on this, in a salon environment, the difference between metals can be determined solely through markings. In the first case, a stamp is placed on the jewelry with the designation of the sample (585 or 750), enclosed in a blade or rectangle. In the second case, the sample (800, 830, 875, 925, 960) fits into the barrel.

Difference between different purity grades

Precious metals have differences not only among themselves. Products made from seemingly the same metal will also have differences depending on the sample. It is determined by the percentage of the main precious metal in the jewelry. Due to the difference in proportions, the density of the alloy, melting point, and hardness change. GOST-approved options based on silver and gold can be seen in the tables below.

Graduation of gold-based alloys:

What should not be cleaned, according to the recommendations of jewelers

If you decide to clean gold jewelry yourself at home, you need to know that not all substances are suitable for cleaning this metal.

Dangerous ammonia

Ammonia is an indispensable assistant in the arsenal of housewives. It is used to clean absolutely everything: from clothes to gold items. But, according to jewelers, ammonia is also harmful to gold plating.

You cannot clean white and regular gold using the same solution at once. You should also not clean gold and silver together.

Ionization occurs and, in simple terms, the jewelry changes colors with each other. Gold unprotected by other coatings can react with ammonia, causing it to darken. Instead of pure ammonia, it is recommended to use an ammonia solution - a solvent solvent - to clean gold jewelry.

What is the difference between white gold and silver if the products have been rhodium plated?

If gold jewelry has been rhodium-plated to obtain the desired shade and physical properties, it is impossible to visually distinguish it from silver. In this case, only the mark on the product can help determine the metal used.

If the markings on your existing jewelry are not trustworthy, you can take it for chemical analysis. During the inspection, the metal is tested with acid. The main disadvantage of this method is that a trace of the reagent may remain on the product.

Advantages and disadvantages of white gold and silver

Silver has several positive aspects, but the main one is its low cost. With a wide range of choices, you'll always find what you need. Silver is also believed to have magical and healing properties. It calms, brings good luck, heals and cleanses.

Unfortunately, this metal also has disadvantages. The main one is that silver darkens over time and oxidizes. Because of this, it is not recommended to wear it every day, especially during illness and stressful situations. If the jewelry has lost its original shine, it can be cleaned with a special liquid sold in jewelry stores.

Many people associate gold jewelry, including white jewelry, with prosperity and wealth. Every woman, wearing it, feels more confident. In addition, gold products are less likely to become deformed and lose their attractiveness. The exception is rhodium-plated jewelry, which must be renewed periodically.

Another advantage of gold over silver is its high degree of ductility, which allows you to create more sophisticated and sophisticated products from it.

Causes of darkening of gold

Several years ago, ex-millionaire Sterligov claimed that the Central Bank’s 999 gold coins rusted after being in the ground. However, rust on gold is a questionable matter. But products made of gold alloys can oxidize, that is, tarnish or darken, and there are several reasons for this:

1. Compound. Jewelry is not made from pure gold. For strength, alloys of different volume and composition are introduced into the alloy, which changes the physicochemical properties of the metal. The lower the grade, the higher the likelihood of rapid wear. In this case, the jewelry darkens due to the fact that the metal oxidizes.
2. Iodine. As a reagent, this harmless antiseptic destroys the molecular structure of the outer layer of products. As a result, gray spots appear on the jewelry. That is why it is recommended to remove gold jewelry when visiting swimming pools and SPA treatments. Once the top layer is damaged, the products begin to oxidize.
3. Chemical industry products. Cosmetics, detergents, and some medications contain substances that can adversely affect the appearance of jewelry made from precious alloys.

In addition, sweat and fat particles remain on the outer layer, onto which dirt from the environment settles over time. If oxidizing jewelry is not cleaned in a timely manner, it will appear that the gold has turned black.