White Gold
18kt White Gold Diamond Bracelet
Ladies Watch
What Is White Gold?
White gold is an alloy formed from a combination of yellow gold with another metal, usually nickel or palladium. The result is not really white but silvery-grey in appearance. It was initially developed as an alternative to platinum (which it superficially resembles) but today is desirable in its own right. You can buy all sorts of wide variety of white gold jewelry such as rings, pendants etc.
Nickel vs Palladium
Originally most white gold was made with nickel. This caused a problem as a significant number of people (especially women) are allergic to nickel on the skin. In Europe nickel-based white gold is largely being phased out as a result of the EU Nickel Directive.The usual alternative to nickel is palladium. Palladium is not as firm as the nickel alloy and palladium based white gold needs to be treated somewhat more carefully then the nickel version.
A number of companies are researching possible alloys that retain the hardness of nickel without the allergy problems.
Purity
As with yellow gold, the white alloy is graded in karats. Since the substance is an alloy then by definition there's no such thing as 100% pure, 24 karat white gold. Usually the proportion of yellow gold in the alloy varies from 14 to 21 karats.Sometimes white gold is given a coating of rhodium to improve its appearance. That's great until the coating wears off! If that happens a jeweler may be able to restore the coating for you.