rose gold and tarnish

Hello

Am hoping someone nice and wise will be able to help :)

We sell sterling silver jewellery which we sometimes arrange to be professionally gold plated. Have just had a customer return a rose gold plated charm as it tarnished significantly (went rather black) within a few weeks. They say a local jeweller has told them that the plating is at fault and that it shouldn't tarnish.

I have the charm back and the tarnish has lifted easily with a polishing cloth so I would have thought this was just the copper in the rose gold alloy reacting with moisture and that the customer needs to clean it gently after wearing to stop this taking grip again. But can't get that worry out of my mind about whether the plating could somehow be at fault, and google isn't giving me a clear answer ;)

So I guess I am asking is in your experience is usual for rose gold to tarnish or whether you would see this as an indication of something being amiss with the plating?

Thanks in advance!

Mel

No as already said, rose gold is high in copper-hence the colour. Tarnish is due to exposure to sulphides in the air and contact with certain foods, such as eggs and onions, sometimes transferred by fingers. It can also be caused by anti-dandruff shampoo and varios beauty aids.

The simple remedy for minimal damage to the plating is a quick dip in silver dip from the supermaket, followed by rinsing.
If you talk to the plater, he might also confirm that yellow gold is a better option to overcome this problem. Dennis.

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Originally Posted by Dennis

No as already said, rose gold is high in copper-hence the colour. Tarnish is due to exposure to sulphides in the air and contact with certain foods, such as eggs and onions, sometimes transferred by fingers. It can also be caused by anti-dandruff shampoo and various beauty aids.

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Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question, (and for not being able to answer your question Mel) but does gold plating tarnish differently to solid gold? My wedding band is 18ct rose gold and has been worn almost continuously for the past 37 years. I have never noticed any tarnish on it. On the other hand, if I wear copper, it goes black within a couple of weeks, so obviously my skin reacts quickly with copper but not to the copper in the gold. Just curious.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dennis

No as already said, rose gold is high in copper-hence the colour. Tarnish is due to exposure to sulphides in the air and contact with certain foods, such as eggs and onions, sometimes transferred by fingers. It can also be caused by anti-dandruff shampoo and varios beauty aids.

The simple remedy for minimal damage to the plating is a quick dip in silver dip from the supermaket, followed by rinsing.
If you talk to the plater, he might also confirm that yellow gold is a better option to overcome this problem. Dennis.

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Would renaissance wax help to reduce the tarnish too?

A smooth wedding ring would polish itself in use of course compared with a charm which has much less contact and I think a higher carat gold would help too.

Sending it out waxed would work for a while. This company seems to think that their plating is more upmarket:

http://www.dmjewellery.co.uk/service...-gold-plating/

Thanks Dennis - feel more assured now! We did contact that company a couple of years back when we were looking for a plater who offered rose gold but they didn't respond.