Can You Polish White Gold Yourself?

White gold can easily be polished by the jewelry owner. There are many polishing materials present in the market that you could go out to buy and apply to your white gold jewelry. However, you have to remember that you shouldn’t do this often, especially not if you have no experience polishing white gold.

You polish white gold to ensure that it’s shinier; doing so removes the rhodium plating more quickly as the polishing material will cause an abrasion.

To see the most popular white gold jewelry available just click here.

Should You Polish White Gold Yourself?

Now that you know that you can polish white gold yourself, should you do it? The answer is maybe. If you have decent experience cleaning, polishing, and taking care of your white gold jewelry, you should do it. However, if you have no information or experience dealing with valuables, you shouldn’t waste your time polishing white gold.

You can upset the value of your white gold as polishing requires a certain degree of abrasion, and your white gold layer may be lost. Even if you take it to a professional to be polished, there is some purity of white gold that it may lose. But taking it to a professional is better than trying to polish it yourself with the material you have purchased online.

How Often Should You Polish White Gold?

You don’t want to polish anything too often. However, with white gold especially, you want to keep the polishes to a minimum. White gold is white due to the Rhodium-plating on top of it. Most jewelers opt for this plating since it’s white and helps the white gold appear white and silvery.

However, this plating can be worn down. Every time you polish a white gold article, you’re chipping away at the Rhodium Plating. If you want to ensure that the white gold remains shiny, you may polish it once a year.

Polishing it once a year or every 18 months ensures that white gold is still shiny. The white gold may turn yellow if you polish it too often since the layer underneath the rhodium plating is yellowish.

Why Is White Gold White?

It is important to recognize that white gold isn’t naturally white; instead, it’s an alloy of gold, silver, and copper. The color of your white gold depends on two major factors, which we will list below.

1. Composition

The composition of metals in the white gold makes it an alloy which means that they will not appear yellow. White gold has a very high proportion of gold compared to other metals like silver and copper, but it doesn’t appear to be gold due to these extra metals. Yellow gold has a high percentage of purity of gold which is why it appears more yellow than white gold. However, white gold doesn’t have a greater percentage of purity.

2. External Coating

We also know that white gold has a Rhodium coating on top which means that the external coating adds to the silvery sheen on the white gold. Rhodium plating can be done on 14K,18Kor even 22K pieces so that the color of the white gold doesn’t change. You may have to get your jewelry replated whenever it loses its sheen.

How Can I Restore the Color of White Gold?

Sometimes polishing is not enough to get your jewelry looking shiny again. It may be that the polishing has resulted in abrasion, and now the yellow gold underneath is exposed. The exposed yellow gold can’t be polished to be shiny like white gold, so you may have to replate using Rhodium plating.

Almost all jewelers provide a service where they can conduct a rhodium replating for a fee. Before you ask them to replate the article, ask them the method they would be using and the thickness of the plating so that you can know what you’re in for.

How to Clean White Gold?

While we know that polishing can make the white gold shiny again, there may be other reasons your white gold isn’t shining the way you want. For example, your white gold may be dirty. If you live in an area that gets a lot of dust or smog, then you may find that the pollution or dust may have settled on the surface of your white gold ring. If you feel like the white gold isn’t clean enough, you can grab a cloth and get to cleaning. We have stated some of the ways you can clean white gold.

Step 1:

Check if your jewelry has any broken clasps or loose stones. It would be best to do so before beginning the act of cleaning as they may get destroyed even further in the washing process. If you notice any wiggling stones or broken clasps, you want to put the jewelry in a plastic bag and get it to a professional for repair. If you see no wiggly or broken bits, you can move on to the next step.

Step 2:

Take a cup or two of warm water in a bowl and add a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid. You can stir this mixture using a spoon or fingers. Once you do this, you can then place your jewelry inside the bowl. The concoction will help remove any grime or dirt in the crevices of your jewelry. If the jewelry is dirt, add a few drops of ammonia to the mixture.

Step 3:

Soak the jewelry in the water for 20-35 minutes.

Step 4:

Make a paste of baking soda and water and use a brush to lather brush out the grime from your jewelry. If the jewelry is dirty, use white vinegar instead of water.

Step 5:

Rinse off the jewelry under warm water.

Step 6:

Place the jewelry in between microfiber cloth to dry and maintain its shine.

Final Thoughts

You can polish white gold yourself. However, you have to be careful that polishing is abrasive and may affect the white gold’s value. You can polish it once or twice a year so that your white gold still has its shine. But going above this can cause your white gold to lose its Rhodium plating a lot more easily.