Frequently Asked Questions

Gold-filled has roughly a hundred times more gold. Plating needs only 0.175 microns; gold-filled requires the bonded gold layer to be at least 5% of the item’s total weight. In daily wear that is about 6-18 months against 10-30 years, for around twice the price. The full comparison.

No, and this is the single most misread phrase in jewelry retail. The 18K describes the coating. The item underneath is usually brass, and the base metal is not required to be disclosed. What gold-plated actually means.

On a chain worn daily and not removed for showering, expect 6-18 months before base metal shows at the clasp or the back of the neck. Placement matters more than price: the same coating lasts 2-5 years on earrings and 3-9 months on a ring. The arithmetic, with every assumption stated.

Nothing. It has no legal definition in the United States and no certification behind it, so it appears freely on nickel-bearing metal. The claims that mean something name a standard - ASTM F136 or G23 titanium, or niobium. Both are nickel-free by composition and cost under $20. Why the word is empty.

Implant-grade titanium with the grade written in the listing, ideally with a flat back. That removes the chemical cause (nickel) and the most common mechanical one (a butterfly clutch pressed into the lobe). We are not able to diagnose a skin reaction - a dermatologist can patch-test and tell you what you actually react to. Every metal compared on nickel content.

Yes, after roughly 2-5 years of daily wear. At Mohs 8-8.5 it is close enough to the quartz in ordinary household dust to be scratched by it. That is the material behaving as its hardness predicts, not a defect. Moissanite at 9.25 does not. CZ vs moissanite.

Yes - identical carbon, identical crystal structure, identical Mohs 10 hardness. A jeweler needs equipment to tell them apart. What genuinely differs is resale: the lab-grown secondary market is thin and prices have been falling. The full comparison.

925 means 92.5% pure silver - the US legal threshold for calling something sterling. It describes the whole piece, not a coating. It does tarnish, because of the copper in the alloy, but tarnish is a surface film and polishes off. What the stamp does and does not guarantee.

Copper in the metal reacting with sweat. It is harmless, it washes off, and it is not an allergy. It tells you the piece is brass, or that plating has worn through to brass. Stainless steel and titanium contain no free copper and cannot cause it. The chemistry.

Stainless steel, titanium, solid gold and platinum. Not pearls, not opals, not anything plated, and preferably not sterling in chlorine. “Waterproof jewelry” is usually plating over steel - true about the base metal, misleading about the coating. What the claim covers.

Hang them vertically. Chains stored flat in a pile knot themselves - that is a property of chains rather than a mistake, and hanging is the only storage method that reliably prevents it. Storage that solves each specific problem.

Solid gold, platinum, diamond, sapphire, ruby and moissanite: yes. Never pearls, opals, turquoise, amber, coral or emerald - cavitation damages porous and included stones permanently. Never anything plated either; it lifts the coating. The full safety table.

Online, the strongest check needs no equipment: ask whether the price could cover the raw metal at that size. A wide solid gold chain contains thousands of dollars of metal. When the price and the claim disagree, believe the price. Hallmarks and the tests that work.

No, and we would rather say so plainly. Retail markups mean almost anything is worth less the moment you leave, lab-grown diamond resale is weak and weakening, and moissanite and cubic zirconia have essentially no secondary market. Buy jewelry because you want to wear it. What actually holds value.

Less than you would guess, and on material rather than size. A gold-filled chain around $40 is still worn in a decade; a larger plated piece at three times the price often is not worn past the first autumn. How to choose a gift that gets worn.

No, and we say so on every page. We have not handled, worn, weighed or tested any product on this site. What we do instead: read the US FTC Jewelry Guides for what each material term legally requires, compile the specifications a listing does publish, and compute what a stated thickness means in months of wear against a wear model we publish. The methodology in full.

Because we have no customers and no test results, so any would be invented. There are no testimonials, no ratings and no review counts anywhere here. We also deliberately do not emit Review or AggregateRating structured data - our scores are editorial judgments from published specifications, and marking them up as product review ratings would contradict our own copy. Editorial policy.

Affiliate commission from the Amazon Associates program, and nothing else. If you buy through a link here we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. No brand has paid for a placement, supplied a product, or seen copy before publication, and commission rates do not affect rankings. The commercial model in plain English.

Because the live price data for that item is missing or more than 48 hours old. Every price here is pulled from the retailer and stamped with the date it was checked; when it expires, the number disappears on its own rather than sitting there going stale. The failure mode is silence, never a stale claim.

Because we can. A brand cannot write a negative recommendation about a category it competes in, and a retailer-owned publisher cannot write one about something it stocks. We hold no inventory, so every roundup names at least one popular product we would not buy, with the reason. It is the most useful thing on those pages.

Stephen V., an enthusiast - someone genuinely interested in what jewelry is made of and what that should cost. He reads the standards and does the arithmetic. No gemologist, no appraiser, no lab, no editorial team, and we do not imply one. About.

Please do - it is worth more to this site than a purchase. Send the page URL and the specific figure and we will check it against the source. Factual errors are corrected as soon as we can verify the right number, and material corrections are noted on the page rather than made silently. Contact.