Make Your Gold Plated Jewelry Last Longer

Make Your Gold Plated Jewelry Last Longer. Gold-plated jewelry is a great invention. Suppose you can’t afford solid gold jewelry (and most of us can’t). In that case, you can buy jewelry made from other metals coated with a beautiful outer gold layer. You will get the look of the real deal without draining your bank account.

Unfortunately, gold plating isn’t invincible. For starters, it’s thin enough to be measured in microns (one-millionth of a meter). Delicate items are more prone to damage than thick ones. (Consider how easy it is to break a piece of string instead of a thick rope.) As a result, the thin gold plating on your jewelry may become scratched or worn.

When exposed to non-pH neutral materials, gold plating can tarnish. How acidic anything is determined by the pH scale. If a substance is neutral, it will register as a seven; if it is acidic, it will note as less than a seven. (Battery acid, lemon juice, and vinegar have the lowest numbers.) A more alkaline substance than sour will have a pH of up to 14 on the pH scale.

So, how do you keep your plated jewelry safe?

Here are a few pointers:

Take off your jewelry before swimming in chlorine or salt water.
Remove your jewelry before participating in any activity that will make you perspire.
Wear your jewelry after you have applied lotion, makeup, or perfume.
Remove any jewelry that will come into contact with something hard. (For example, before weight lifting, remove your ring.)
Store your plated jewelry in a soft bag (one per jewelry) away from other complex molecules.

After each usage, clean any dirt or debris off of your gold-plated jewelry using a gentle cloth. Additionally, you can give it a brief soak in warm, soapy water before drying it with a soft cloth (or a soft toothbrush to clean small cracks and crevices).

All is not lost if your jewelry has become tarnished beyond the scope of a good cleaning. You can re-plate your jewelry or plate or re-plate jewelry and other products with an 18 or 24k gold plating kit to give it new life.

Gold-plated jewelry will remain bright and shiny for longer if you know how to clean and protect it from scratches or fading. Some people think it can be easily tarnished because it is just gold-plated. However, if you pay close attention to this infographic, the way you clean and wash your pieces of jewelry matters a lot.