Materials
What it is made of, and why that matters
Most jewelry sold as gold is plated. This is the difference in plain terms, because it is the whole reason Esso costs what it costs.
Solid 14k gold
The metal is gold all the way through. There is no coating to wear off, so a ring worn every day for a decade is the same metal on the inside of the band as the day it was made. It can be polished, resized and repaired. This is the top of the range and the reason those pieces cost more.
14k gold filled
A thick layer of 14k gold bonded to a brass core under heat and pressure. The gold layer is roughly a hundred times thicker than plating, which is why it is measured as a percentage of total weight rather than in microns. It lasts years of daily wear and it is safe in water. This is the floor. Nothing below it is sold here.
What is not here
Gold plated and gold vermeil. Plating is a skin a few microns thick over cheap metal. It wears through where the piece rubs, which is the clasp, the inside of a band and the back of an earring, and once it does the base metal reacts with skin. That is the green mark. It is not an allergy, it is copper.
Stones
- Diamond and lab diamond
- The hardest thing you can wear. Chemically identical whether grown or mined; lab stones cost less for the same stone.
- Sapphire
- Hard enough for daily wear and unbothered by water. Comes in far more than blue.
- Tourmaline
- Durable enough to live on a body every day. Every stone is slightly different, which is the point.
- Malachite
- Banded green copper carbonate. Softer than quartz, so it is set rather than strung tight.
- Onyx
- Dense black chalcedony. Hard, even in colour, and completely unbothered by water.
- Jade
- Tough rather than hard, which is why it survives being knocked. Colour varies by piece.
- Carnelian
- Warm orange chalcedony. Deepens slightly with wear against skin.
- Freshwater pearl
- The one soft material used here. Pearls dislike chlorine, perfume and hairspray, so pearl pieces come off before swimming.
Water
Gold and hard stones are fine in the sea, the pool and the shower. Freshwater pearl is the exception: chlorine dulls nacre and dried salt works into the knots, so pearl pieces come off before swimming. Every product page states which of the two it is rather than leaving you to guess from the headline.