Why Gold Jewellery Doesn't Tarnish or Discolour

One of the questions I get asked most often is some version of: will this stay gold? Will it go dark, or green, or patchy? The answer, for solid gold, is no - and it's worth understanding why, because it changes how you think about buying gold jewellery.

Gold is chemically inert

Gold doesn't react with oxygen, water, or most of the things it comes into contact with in daily life. That's what makes it special as a material - and it's why gold artefacts found in archaeological sites thousands of years old look almost exactly as they did when they were made. The metal itself doesn't change.

Tarnishing, which you see on silver and copper and many base metals, happens when the metal reacts with sulphur compounds in the air. Gold simply doesn't do this.

What 9ct and 18ct means for this

Pure gold is 24 carat. 18ct gold is 75% pure gold mixed with other metals. 9ct gold is 37.5% pure gold. The rest is an alloy - usually silver, copper, zinc.

The alloying metals can react more than pure gold, which is why very low carat gold (below 9ct) can sometimes discolour over time. UK hallmarking law sets 9ct as the minimum carat that can legally be described as gold jewellery, and in my experience 9ct pieces worn regularly hold their colour well. 18ct even more so.

What you should never do is confuse solid gold with gold-plated or gold-filled jewellery. With those, the gold is a thin layer over a base metal. Once the layer wears through, the base metal is exposed and that's when you see discolouration. Solid gold goes all the way through.

One caveat: polish

Gold doesn't discolour, but it does develop a patina. Scratches accumulate over time. The surface changes. Some people love this - a worn hammered hoop that's been worn daily for years has a quality that a brand new one doesn't. Others prefer to keep pieces bright and polished.

If you want to restore the surface, a jeweller can repolish most pieces. But the gold underneath is the same gold it always was.

What this means practically?

You can wear solid gold jewellery every day. You can shower in it, sleep in it, wear it to the gym. You don't need to take it off to wash your hands. That's not something I'm saying to sell you something - it's just the nature of the material. Gold has been worn continuously by humans for thousands of years for exactly this reason.

It's one of the things I love most about working with it.

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