Which Is The Best Wedding Band: Platinum Or White Gold

If you think that platinum and white gold are both naturally occurring white metals then you have been deceived. Jewelry made from either one of these metals does give one the feeling that they are in fact white metals. Which one is best and which one makes the best wedding band?

White gold – one of the most popular metals around these days when it comes to jewelry. However, white gold is not a natural substance. Pure gold is yellow and is far to soft to use as jewelry.

Pure gold is mixed with other metals to form a harder alloy that is then suitable for jewelry making. Pure gold is described as being 24 carat. The more common alloys used in jewelry are 9 carat, 14 carat, 18 carat and 22 carat. When white gold is described as being 18 carat, it has 75% pure gold content.

A white gold alloy could contain quantities of silver, palladium, zinc, copper or nickel. These metals also help to harden the white gold for jewelry use. By combining yellow gold with these metals the yellow color is bleached white, hence the formation of white gold. White gold is much harder than yellow gold because of this combination of metals.

Wedding bands need to be hard so an 18 carat wedding band will have 75% pure gold, 10% palladium, 7.5% silver and 7.5% copper. This combination of metals produces a white gold that looks very similar to palladium, yet is much cheaper. Beware of cheaper white gold products as the metals used could be lesser quality resulting in poor jewelry performance.

Platinum: this metal is much rarer than gold so it is far more expensive. Platinum is much harder than pure gold and often needs to be alloyed to soften it a little for jewelry making purposes. Platinum is actually a light grey color, not white and can be graded according to purity like most other metals.

Platinum and white gold are both normally plated with rhodium to give them that famous white finish. Rhodium plating is not permanent and will wear away over time. White gold wedding bands will eventually turn a dirty light grey in color as the rhodium wears off. Your platinum jewelry will lose that brilliant white finish as the rhodium wears off.

Platinum is more expensive than white gold, however they may both look quite cheap over time because of that rhodium plating. You can restore the white lustre to your jewelry by having the rhodium plating reapplied. Which is best? It is in the eye of the beholder. Many don’t realize that white gold was created to imitate platinum. White gold is no longer considered a platinum substitute, it is popular in its own right. If you are looking for a platinum finish on a budget, be wary – you will get what you pay for. If you really want the platinum look – get platinum.

For those wanting white gold, be sure to buy white gold that is good quality, not created from a cheap alloy blend. I like white gold, not because it looks like platinum, but because it looks like white gold.

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