What "rose-toned" really means

Silver is a cool, white metal. When a silver piece glows rose or gold, it has been given a finish: a microscopically thin layer of another metal over the silver.

How thin is thin?

Finishes are measured in microns: thousandths of a millimetre. A human hair is roughly 70 microns thick. A typical finish is a fraction of a micron to a few microns. It's beautiful, but it's a skin, not a solid.

The words, decoded

• Plated / gold-plated / rose-plated: a layer of gold or rose-gold alloy over the base metal. There's no legal minimum thickness.
• Gold vermeil: in the US, this has a strict meaning under the FTC Jewelry Guides: a sterling silver base, coated with gold of at least 10 karat, at least 2.5 microns thick throughout. If a brand uses "vermeil", all three should be true.
• Rose-toned / gold-toned: describes the colour, not the method or thickness.

What we promise

On every Ivari piece page, the Finish line tells you what the finish is, as plainly as we know it. If we're still confirming a detail, it says "on request" rather than guessing. We'd rather be precise than impressive.

Making a finish last

• Friction is the enemy. Finishes wear first where they rub: posts, edges and the backs of drops. Store pieces so they don't touch.
• No polishing cloths. Silver-polishing cloths contain mild abrasives and chemicals that are brilliant on plain silver but remove coloured finishes.
• No dips, no chlorine, no hot tubs.
• Perfume and lotion first, then earrings.

And when it does wear?

A good jeweller can re-plate silver, restoring the colour. It's a normal part of loving a piece for decades, not a defect.