White gold is a good combination of yellow gold and a king of metal giving the gold a tone of white color. Metals mostly using in whitening the gold are palladium, manganese or nickel. It’s possible to see measure value of white gold in karats like yellow gold. Metal addition on the yellow gold was started to use for giving more shape to it but then it took a name of white gold. Yellow is the color of pure gold. It’s also possible to find color variations on gold. How many differences are there between yellow and white gold?
It’s a common misconception that people think yellow gold is pure but it’s not true because yellow gold is a mixture of yellow gold and zinc and copper alloys. It’s a requirement to mix them to sell yellow gold for making it strong in daily usage. White gold is also a mixture. It’s mainly a mixture of silver and pure gold. Some goldsmiths use nickel or palladium for mixture.
People create the most common difference between yellow gold and white gold. Most of the people face allergy problems on white gold because of materials used in it. Especially, if the silver level is higher than standard in white gold it causes allergy in many people. Today goldsmiths are working hard to find materials which gave the same white color to gold without any allergy problems.
Another common misconception on yellow and white gold is their price. People think that yellow gold is always expensive than white gold but it’s not true. Because of the material used in white gold’s mixture, it can be expensive than yellow gold. Especially if the alloy used in the white gold is titanium or platinum, it means yellow gold has a higher price than standard yellow gold.
Today most of the white gold is selling with “scratch proof” label while yellow gold is still has this feature very limited. Especially people who will use rings or other gold variations in daily life mostly prefer white gold. Women mostly prefer white gold if their bracelet or other accessories are including diamond because white gold is also offering a diamond effect.
It’s true that nowadays white gold is facing some problems because some goldsmiths are using cheaper materials on it. Main material used in cheap white gold is nickel. Nickel has many different quality ranges but cheap ones are mostly causing allergy especially in women. Also they are adding rhodium for catching a “shiny effect” on white gold but rhodium is also famous for its wear off from white gold. So customers need to re-plate their white gold accessories every month.
Yellow Gold has always been more popular than white gold because of its shiny appearance. Jewelries used yellow gold in their showcases with special lights and it took attention of all people.
It’s also a war of continents between white gold and yellow gold. Nickel addition to yellow gold for creating white gold is firstly started in Europe and nickel reserves are higher than America in Europe. But cause of allergens in nickel, Americans started to add palladium which product’s reserve is very high in USA and palladium doesn’t have any allergen. Now white gold with palladium mixture caught the big market share in the world. But white gold with palladium is expensive than white gold with nickel and even it’s expensive than yellow gold.
Today still yellow gold is the symbol of wealth and pure gold but white gold is also on the way with strong steps to take the crown from it.
