Somewhere in your jewellery drawer there is a necklace you loved for about three weeks. It went grey at the clasp, then along the chain, and now it lives in a small tangle with everything else that disappointed you. Almost everyone who buys jewellery has one of these.
We make jewellery in Lithuania, and the question we get more than any other has nothing to do with style. It is some version of: will this one last? Fair question. The answer depends less on price than most people expect, and almost entirely on two things. What the piece is made of underneath, and what you do with it on an ordinary Tuesday.
This guide is the long version of that answer. Which materials stay bright, which ones darken and can be brought back, which ones quietly wear away, and how to tell the difference before you pay rather than after.
Why jewellery tarnishes in the first place
Tarnish is a chemical reaction on the surface of the metal. Knowing which reaction you are dealing with tells you whether it can be reversed, which is the only thing that matters when you are standing in front of a blackened chain wondering if you have ruined it.
Silver reacts with sulphur
People say silver oxidises. Strictly, it does something else. Sterling silver reacts with sulphur compounds in the air and on your skin to form silver sulphide, a thin dark film that sits on top of the metal. The silver underneath stays exactly as it was. That is why a blackened silver chain polishes back to bright in two minutes, while a worn-through gold plating stays worn through.
Sulphur is everywhere. Wool, rubber bands, eggs, onions, city air, some cosmetics, and the natural oils on your own skin. This is also why one person’s silver goes dark in a month and their sister’s stays clean for a year. Skin chemistry varies enormously, and nothing you buy changes that.
Copper is usually the culprit
Pure silver is too soft to hold a shape, so sterling silver is 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, almost always copper. That copper is what makes 925 silver wearable, and it is also what reacts fastest. Cheaper “silver-coloured” jewellery often contains far more copper or brass, which is where the green mark on your finger comes from.
What speeds it up
In our experience the order goes roughly like this: chlorinated pool water, perfume sprayed directly onto a piece, hairspray, hand sanitiser, saltwater, sweat, and finally ordinary air. Perfume deserves its own sentence, because almost nobody suspects it. Alcohol-based fragrance sprayed over a necklace does more damage in six months than a year of normal wear.
Stainless steel: the material that stays bright
If your priority is a piece you can put on and forget, stainless steel is the honest answer, and it is the backbone of most of what we make.
What makes it different
Stainless steel contains chromium, and chromium does something clever. It reacts with oxygen to form an invisible, extremely thin protective layer on the surface. Scratch it, and the layer re-forms on its own within seconds. The metal repairs itself. There is no sulphide film building up, so there is nothing to polish off.
The grade matters. Surgical-grade 316L stainless steel contains molybdenum, which makes it much more resistant to salt and chlorine than the cheaper 304 grade used in decorative goods. When a shop does not state the grade, that usually tells you something. We are specific about ours for exactly that reason, and you can read the detail on our stainless steel jewellery page.
Can you shower and swim in it?
Shower, yes, without thinking about it. Sea, yes, though rinse it in fresh water afterwards, because salt left to dry on any metal is abrasive. Chlorinated pools are survivable, but chlorine is harsher than seawater and we would take a favourite piece off first. Hot tubs are the one place we would say no. High temperature plus concentrated chlorine is the worst combination there is.
Practically, this makes steel the right material for anything you wear constantly rather than occasionally. Our stainless steel bangle bracelet is the piece our own team wears through swimming and washing up and everything else, and the freshwater pearl necklace with hematite beads puts natural pearls on a steel chain, so the part that takes the wear is the part built for it.
925 sterling silver: it darkens, and that is fine
Steel wins on convenience. Silver wins on almost everything else, and it is worth being clear about why.
Sterling silver has a warmth and a depth of shine that plated steel never quite reaches. It can be worked into finer detail. It can be repaired, resized and re-polished essentially forever, which is why silver pieces get passed down and steel ones generally stay in one generation. And it is a precious metal with an actual material value.
The trade-off is that it will darken. Eventually, always. The useful thing to understand is that this reverses completely. Two minutes with a polishing cloth restores it. Even heavily blackened silver comes back with a proper silver dip, though you should keep dips away from anything with pearls or porous stones.
Rhodium plating buys you time
Much of the silver sold today, ours included, is rhodium-plated. Rhodium is a platinum-group metal, harder than silver and completely non-reactive. A rhodium layer keeps a piece bright for far longer and adds scratch resistance. It does wear thin eventually, faster on rings than on earrings, and any jeweller can replate it.
If you want silver you will actually wear rather than admire, look for pieces with plenty of open surface and few crevices. Tarnish hides in detail and is a nuisance to clean out of it. Our unisex 925 rhodium silver hoops and the 925 silver zircon earrings are both easy in this respect. The wider 925 silver collection is worth a look if silver is your default.
Gold plating: honest expectations
Gold-plated jewellery is where most disappointment happens, and almost all of it comes from unclear expectations rather than bad products.
Plating is a microscopically thin layer of real gold over a base metal. It wears away rather than tarnishing, and those two failures need completely different thinking. Once plating is gone from an edge, cleaning achieves nothing. Only replating brings it back.
How long it lasts depends on three things: thickness, what sits underneath, and where you wear it. Thickness is measured in microns. Flash plating at around 0.5 microns is what you find on very cheap fashion jewellery and it can go in weeks. Anything from 2 microns up is a serious coating. The base metal matters because plating over stainless steel means that when the gold does thin, what shows through is a neutral, non-reactive metal instead of greenish brass.
Placement matters most of all. Rings and bracelets rub against surfaces constantly. Earrings and pendants barely touch anything. This is why we generally suggest gold-plated pieces for ears and neck and solid materials for hands, a rule that survives contact with reality. Our gold-plated ear cuff with zircon sits in the low-friction category by design, and there is more in the earrings collection.
For the sake of calibration: the houses that define the top of this market, Cartier and Tiffany & Co., largely avoid plating in their fine lines and work in solid gold and platinum instead. A 40 euro piece was never going to meet that standard, and it does not need to. It is simply useful to know what the three real options are: solid precious metal, a good coating on a stable base, or a thin coating on an unstable one.
Pearls and natural stones follow different rules
Once organic material enters the picture, everything you know about metal stops applying.
Pearls are softer than you think
A freshwater pearl is layers of nacre built up by a mollusc. Nacre measures around 2.5 to 4.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, softer in places than your own fingernail, and it is porous. Perfume, hairspray, vinegar and lemon juice all etch it permanently. Dry heat makes it crack.
The old advice is still the best advice. Pearls go on last and come off first. Put them on after perfume, hairspray and make-up. Take them off before you undress. Wipe them with a soft damp cloth afterwards. Store them somewhere they can breathe, away from sealed plastic and away from harder stones that will scratch them.
Mikimoto, who invented pearl culturing in 1893, still recommend essentially this. Over a century of trying, and nobody has improved on it. Our pearl collection and the Ocean Muse line are built around freshwater pearls, and the care card we include with them says exactly what is written above.
Natural stones vary more than people realise
Hardness is only half the story. Quartz-family stones such as amethyst, citrine, rose quartz and strawberry quartz sit around 7 on the Mohs scale and handle daily life well. Turquoise, howlite, opal and moonstone are softer, more porous and need proper care. Labradorite chips along its cleavage planes if you knock it hard.
Colour is the other issue nobody warns you about. Amethyst fades in sustained sunlight. So does rose quartz, and kunzite fades dramatically. A stone ring worn every summer on a bright balcony will look different in five years. The fix is simply to keep pieces off sunny windowsills, which is exactly where a surprising number of people store them.
GIA keeps a gem encyclopedia, and that is where we send people who want to check a specific stone rather than take our word for it. If stones are your thing, the Inner You collection is where most of ours live, including pieces like the strawberry quartz earrings.
Sensitive skin: what “hypoallergenic” actually means
“Hypoallergenic” is a marketing word with no legal definition. Any brand can print it. What matters is a single element: nickel.
Nickel is the most common contact allergen in Europe, affecting somewhere around 15% of women. It causes redness, itching and small blisters, usually a day or two after contact, which is why people so often blame the wrong piece.
The EU regulates this properly. Under REACH Annex XVII, jewellery in prolonged contact with skin must release less than 0.5 micrograms of nickel per square centimetre per week, and items inserted into pierced ears must stay under 0.2. Those are testable limits with a number attached. Anything legally sold in the EU should meet them, which is one concrete argument for buying from inside the EU rather than from a marketplace shipping directly from outside it.
In practice, the materials that cause the fewest problems are surgical stainless steel, titanium, rhodium-plated silver and solid gold above 14 carats. The ones that cause the most are cheap alloys, unmarked “silver tone” metal, and vintage costume jewellery from before nickel rules existed.
One detail worth knowing: sterling silver can legally contain small amounts of nickel in its 7.5% alloy, though good manufacturers use copper instead. If you react to nickel, ask. Any serious jeweller will know the answer for their own pieces.
Six questions to ask before you buy
This is the part we would want a friend to know. None of it requires expertise, and the answers separate a well-made piece from a photogenic one very quickly.
- What is the base metal? The metal underneath the plating, not the plating itself. If a shop cannot tell you, that is the answer.
- If it is plated, how thick? Stated in microns. Silence usually means thin.
- Is it nickel-safe? A shop selling in the EU should know its own compliance.
- What are the findings made of? Clasps, earring posts and jump rings are where jewellery fails first. A gorgeous pendant on a weak clasp is a lost pendant.
- Are the stones natural, treated, or synthetic? All three are legitimate. Vagueness about which is the problem.
- What happens if it breaks? A maker who repairs their own work builds it differently.
Care that takes three minutes a month
Most jewellery care advice is written as if you have a free afternoon. You do not. Here is the version that gets done.
Daily, without effort
Put jewellery on last, after perfume, lotion and hairspray. Take it off before the gym, the pool and the shower if it is silver or plated. Keep a small dish where you take rings off, by the sink rather than on the edge of it.
Monthly, three minutes
Warm water, a drop of washing-up liquid, a soft toothbrush for anything with texture. Rinse and dry completely, because water trapped under a stone setting is what causes the dark rims people mistake for tarnish. Silver gets a pass with a polishing cloth. Pearls get a damp cloth only, never soap and never submersion.
Storage, which matters more than cleaning
Air causes tarnish, so a closed box beats an open tray. Separate your pieces so harder stones cannot scratch softer ones, and individual pouches are both ideal and cheap. Anti-tarnish strips in a silver box work well. Chains should be laid flat or hung, because a chain in a pile knots itself, and knotted chains get broken by people trying to fix them in a hurry.
Two local factors most guides ignore
Care advice is usually written as though everyone lives in the same conditions. We do not, and two things where we are have a real effect on jewellery.
First, tap water across most of Lithuania is hard. High calcium and magnesium means that rinsing a piece and letting it air-dry leaves white mineral deposits, particularly between chain links and under stone settings. Those deposits then collect oils and skin cells, and a few months later the piece looks grey while the metal underneath has not darkened at all. The fix takes five seconds: dry with a soft cloth instead of leaving it to drip.
Second, the heating season. From October to April indoor humidity drops to around 25-30%, and that dryness is hard on pearls and on amber. Nacre loses flexibility as it dries and can eventually craze. Through winter, pearls belong in a closed box away from a radiator rather than on an open shelf beside one. It is the only time of year when where you store pearls genuinely matters.
Third, and smaller: road salt. It travels on shoes, hands and everything else, so in winter bracelets and rings deserve the same quick freshwater rinse we recommend after the sea.
Choosing by how you actually live
Material choice is really a lifestyle question. Here is how we would advise a friend.
| If you | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Never take jewellery off | 316L stainless steel | Survives water, sweat and sleep without attention |
| Swim regularly | Stainless steel, solid gold | No plating to lose, no film to build |
| Have reactive skin | Surgical steel, titanium, rhodium-plated silver | Lowest nickel release in normal wear |
| Want it to outlive you | 925 silver, solid gold | Repairable, re-polishable, worth restoring |
| Work with your hands | Steel or silver, low profile | Plating and raised stones lose to abrasion |
| Rotate a large collection | Anything, including plated | Occasional wear makes durability far less critical |
Most people need two or three materials rather than one. A steel piece for constant wear, silver for the things that should last, and whatever you like for occasions. Our Minimal Line is designed for the first category, and the bracelets collection and necklaces collection collections cover most of the rest.
Common questions
Does stainless steel jewellery ever tarnish?
In any normal sense, no. Quality 316L steel stays free of the dark film that forms on silver. It can pick up a haze from soap residue or skin oil, and warm water removes that. If a piece sold as steel is genuinely darkening, it is either a lower grade or it is plated over something else.
Why did my silver turn black in a week?
Almost always skin chemistry combined with something specific: a new medication, a change in diet, hormonal shifts, or a new perfume or lotion. The piece is fine. A polishing cloth resolves it, and rhodium-plated silver slows the whole process down considerably.
Can I sleep in my jewellery?
Stainless steel, yes. Silver, yes, though it will darken faster from prolonged skin contact. Pearls and plated pieces should come off, because friction against bedding is exactly the abrasion that wears plating thin and dulls nacre. Earrings with delicate posts are also the most common thing to bend in sleep.
How do I know if a piece is real 925 silver?
Look for the 925 stamp, usually on a clasp or the inside of a band. Real silver is non-magnetic, so if a magnet grabs it, you have something else. And genuine silver does tarnish over time, so a “silver” piece that stays perfectly bright for years without any polishing is usually plated something else.
Is gold-plated jewellery worth buying?
Yes, for the right pieces. Plating over stainless steel, on earrings or a pendant, worn normally, will look good for years. Plating over brass, on a ring, worn while working with your hands, will struggle to last the summer. The mismatch between material and use causes the disappointment, and the material on its own rarely does.
What is the most durable jewellery for everyday wear?
Solid 316L stainless steel with no plating and no set stones. It sits well below solid gold on preciousness, and nothing else takes as much abuse for as little attention. If you want one piece you never think about, that is the specification.
What this comes down to
Jewellery that lasts comes from matching the material to the life it is going to have, and spending more only helps when it buys you a better match. A 40 euro steel bracelet worn every day for five years is a better purchase than a 200 euro plated one that spends four of those years in a drawer looking sad.
Ask what is underneath. Ask how thick the coating is. Take pearls off before you shower and put silver on after your perfume. That is most of it, and it accounts for most of the difference between jewellery you keep and jewellery you replace.
Everything we make is designed and assembled by hand in Lithuania, and we are specific about materials on every product page for exactly the reasons in this article. Have a look at the full collection, or read our jewellery care guide if you want the short practical version of the last two sections.