Almost everyone is fond of jewelry, don’t we? Especially women, love to accessories themselves with jewelry piece. And buying pure gold can be a little too harsh for their pockets.
If someone loves gold jewelry and wants varieties in the designs then Gold Plated Jewelry and Gold Filled Jewelry are the best alternatives for it.
They are affordable and can be carried in any place without any worries about losing them. So here, we are going to differentiate between the alternatives of gold.
Key Takeaways
- Gold-plated items have a thin layer of gold covering a base metal, while gold-filled items have a thicker layer of gold over a base metal.
- Gold-filled items are more durable and valuable than gold-plated items.
- Gold-filled items are also more expensive than gold-plated items.
Gold Plated vs Gold Filled
Gold-plated jewelry is a type of jewelry that has a thin layer of gold applied to a base metal such as copper or brass through a process of electroplating. Gold-filled jewelry is made by using a process called mechanical bonding to combine a layer of gold with a base metal such as brass.
Gold Plated jewelry is those jewelry pieces that have only the namesake amount of gold water on their base products. These kinds of jewelry are convenient to pair as you can find varieties of designs in them.
One can select any design and pair it with their outfit and nowadays jewelry styling is in trend.
On the other hand, the jewelry pieces that are not completely gold, but has finer quality as it consists of 5.0% of real gold in them are known as Gold-Filled jewelry.
These Jewelry have finer quality and people mostly recommend this jewelry piece because of its quality as per its availability rate.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | Gold Plated | Gold Filled |
|---|---|---|
| Durability | Gold Plated jewelry is not that long-lasting. | You can wear the same Gold-Filled jewelry for several years as it is quite durable. |
| Tarnishing | Gold Plated jewelry quickly tarnishes after a few times of usage. | Gold Filled jewelry never tarnishes. |
| Quality | People are not satisfied with the quality of Gold Plated jewelry. | Gold Filled jewelry is served with great quality. |
| Base Metal | The base metals that are used to make Gold Plated jewelry are copper, brass, and others. | Only brass can be used as the base model of Gold-Filled jewelry. |
| Value | Gold Plated is not that valuable. | This kind of jewelry is slightly more valuable. |
What is Gold Plated?
Gold Plated refers to those pieces of jewelry that have almost zero percent of solid gold. It only has a small quality of 0.5% gold water above its base model.
To create Gold Plated jewelry one uses cheap quality metals like copper, brass, other related metals.
Because of the usage of low quality and cheap products, the Gold Plated jewelry easily gets damaged after a fewer usage. It starts tarnishing soon, and the color of the metal underneath it starts to show.
Hence, people get disappointed with the quality. But, you someone wants to style it only a few times, then the customer is not satisfied completely, but there’s no objection either.
Gold Plated jewelry might be harmful to sensitive skin as it might cause irritations sometimes. If any sot of itching or redness is seen in the body parts, the user is suggested to quickly remove it.
The irritations have several reasons but sometimes when the jewelry piece comes in contact with water, chemical, or sometimes heat then it starts reacting harshly on the skin.
It is effortless to make gold-plated jewelry, and also a major plus point of this is that the jewelry is available in a variety of designs. Also, such jewelry can be found in any stationery or cosmetic store.
Since we have already talked about the quality of gold-plated jewelry, sometimes it becomes discolored and starts to lose its original color.
Then, a pro tip that can restore its shine is by gently rubbing the piece against a soft jewelry cloth.
What is Gold-Filled?
Gold Filled jewelry is considered to be the finer yet affordable kind of jewelry available in the market. Around 14K, 12K, or 18K of gold is used to manufacture this jewelry.
Therefore, by this, we can already understand its quality. We can even wear the same jewelry piece for many years since there will be no quality issues with it.
People tend to buy this jewelry when they want to invest in a beautiful and affordable piece with its great quality.
Such jewelry can even tolerate any kind of situation like heat, chemicals, water, makeup, etc without any problem.
The Gold-Filled jewelry can never discolor but sometimes the shine of the jewelry gets degraded with time. But, there’s nothing to worry about it as you can bring back its original color.
For this, you need to have a mild soap and a toothbrush and gently rub it on the piece, and instantly you can see the shine.
Gold Filled jewelry is complicated to manufacture, and it can only use brass as its base as no other metal can work with it.
You also need to notice that Gold-Filled jewelry is manufactured by some selected companies and in some simple yet elegant jewelry pieces.
And, such stores either open their branding store or they sell it in bigger stores. One more benefit of this jewelry is that they are suitable for all skin type without any hassle.
Main Differences Between Gold Plated and Gold Filled
- Gold Plated jewelry can be destroyed easily. On the other hand, comparative comparatively the Gold-Filled jewelry can be stored for a longer period.
- Gold-plated jewelry tarnishes very quickly. On the other hand, gold-filled jewelry can never tarnish as it is manufactured from good products.
- One can never be satisfied with the quality of Gold plated jewelry. On the other hand, Gold-Filled Jewelry has a fine quality check.
- Various cheap materials like copper, brass and other such materials are used in Gold Plated jewelry. On the other hand, Gold-Filled jewelry can only be made on top of brass.
- Gold Plated jewelry is cheap and hence it has low value. On the other hand, Gold Filled jewelry has been added more value than the Gold plated.
Last Updated : 20 July, 2023
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Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.
