How to Clean Gold Jewellery

Gold doesn't tarnish.

That's worth knowing before you clean any of it, because it means a gold piece that's gone dull is telling you something about what sits underneath the gold, not about the gold itself. Pure gold doesn't react with air or water. It can't rust and it can't tarnish. So when a gold chain loses its shine, the cause is one of three things: build-up on the surface, the other metals mixed in with the gold, or a base metal starting to show through a finish that's wearing thin.

Which of those it is depends entirely on how the piece is made. And that's the part most cleaning advice skips straight past.

Below we'll cover how to work out what you've actually got, then the right method for each type, the rules that hold across all of them, and where water genuinely sits in all this.

Jump to:

• First, Which Gold Have You Actually Got?
• Every Type of Gold, Side by Side
• How to Clean Solid Gold
• How to Clean Gold Vermeil
• How to Clean Gold-Plated Jewellery
• How to Clean Rose Gold
• How to Clean White Gold
• How to Clean Gold-Filled and Gold-Tone Pieces
• The Rules That Hold for Every Type of Gold
• Water, Chlorine and the Sea
• FAQs

First, Which Gold Have You Actually Got?

Start with the stamp. Most gold carries one, usually on a clasp, the inside of a band, or a small tag near the fastening.

A karat or millesimal stamp means solid gold. 24K or 999 is pure. 18K or 750 is 75% gold. 14K is 585, and 9K is 375. The number tells you how much of the metal is gold and how much is the alloy mixed in for strength.

A "925" stamp on a gold-coloured piece usually means gold vermeil. This catches people out, because 925 is the sterling silver hallmark. On a gold piece it's the giveaway: vermeil is gold laid over a solid sterling silver base, so it carries the hallmark of the metal underneath rather than the gold on top.

"GP", "GEP", "1/20 12K GF" or no stamp at all points to a plated or filled piece. GP and GEP are gold plated and gold electroplated. GF is gold filled, and the fraction tells you how much of the total weight is gold.

If there's no stamp, check the product page. That's the most reliable answer for anything bought recently. Our range is described plainly: pieces are either 18K gold over a 316L stainless steel core, or 18ct gold vermeil over sterling silver. Anything not marked vermeil, sterling silver or tungsten is the former. Our guide to 18K gold vs gold vermeil goes through how each is built and why the base metal matters more than the karat number.

Weight helps as a last resort. Solid gold is noticeably heavy for its size. A plated steel piece feels solid but lighter, and a costume piece feels light and slightly hollow.

Every Type of Gold, Side by Side

Rose gold and white gold are colours rather than constructions, so either can be solid, vermeil or plated. Find your construction in the table first, then read the colour-specific section below for the extra quirk each one brings.

How to Clean Solid Gold

Solid gold is the most forgiving thing on this list, because there's no finish to wear through and no base metal hiding underneath. What you see is what the piece is made of, all the way down.

Warm water, a few drops of mild washing-up liquid, ten to fifteen minutes to soak. A soft-bristled toothbrush is genuinely fine here, worked gently around any detail or setting. Rinse and dry with a soft cloth.

The one thing to respect is softness. Gold gets softer as the karat goes up, so a 24K or 22K piece scratches more easily than 9K. Skip anything abrasive, keep the pressure light on high-karat pieces, and store them where they won't knock against harder metals.

Lower karats can dull slightly over time. That's the alloy metals reacting, not the gold, and a soapy soak brings it back.

How to Clean Gold Vermeil

Vermeil needs the gentlest hand of anything here, and for a reason that isn't obvious: the problem isn't the gold, it's the sterling silver holding it up.

Cool or lukewarm water with a couple of drops of mild soap. A soft cloth rather than a brush. Rinse, then dry immediately and properly, because water sitting against a vermeil piece dulls the silver base through the gold above it.

The specific warning worth remembering: never use silver polish or a silver dip on vermeil. Both are made to strip tarnish off sterling silver, and on a vermeil piece the gold is the first thing they reach. A dip that would rescue a silver chain will take the gold off a vermeil one. If a vermeil piece looks tarnished, it's almost always build-up on the gold rather than the silver showing, and mild soap handles it.

Vermeil rewards a bit of care and gives you a heavier, sharper piece in return, which is the whole reason our gold vermeil range is built on a sterling base. For rings specifically, how to clean gold rings covers the vermeil-versus-plated question in more detail.

How to Clean Gold-Plated Jewellery

Plated gold is where most damage happens, and it's almost always done by cleaning rather than by wearing.

The short version: warm water, mild washing-up liquid, fifteen to twenty minutes, a soft cloth, then dry it straight away. A soft-bristled toothbrush is fine on engraved detail as long as the pressure stays light.

What matters more is what you keep away from it. Toothpaste and baking soda are both abrasive enough to take gold off a plated surface, and both are the advice you'll find first almost everywhere. Ultrasonic cleaners work plating loose over time. On a piece where the gold layer is measured in microns, a stronger clean is the thing most likely to cost you the finish.

There's a lot more to this one, including how to tell surface build-up apart from plating that's genuinely wearing. Our full guide to cleaning gold-plated jewellery covers it properly, and how long gold plating lasts covers what to expect over the years. And if you want to know what the word itself is actually telling you before you buy anything, what does gold plated mean breaks down the two numbers that decide whether a plated piece is worth owning.

How to Clean Rose Gold

Rose gold gets its colour from copper. Everything specific about cleaning it follows from that.

Clean it the way you'd clean its construction, so solid rose gold takes a soapy soak, plated rose gold takes the gentler plated method. The extra rule is acid. Copper reacts with it, so lemon juice, vinegar and any cleaner leaning on either will mark a rose gold piece in a way they wouldn't mark yellow gold. Those two ingredients turn up in a lot of home-remedy advice, which is exactly why they're worth naming.

Solid rose gold can darken very slightly over years as the copper reacts with air. Some people like it and leave it. If you don't, a soapy clean and a soft cloth lifts most of it.

We do rose gold across several chain styles alongside our yellow gold range.

How to Clean White Gold

White gold is the one where dullness usually isn't dirt at all.

It's gold alloyed with white metals, and almost every white gold piece is finished with a thin rhodium plating to give it that bright, cool white. Rhodium is what you're actually looking at, and rhodium wears. When a white gold piece starts looking faintly yellow or warm, that's the finish thinning and the gold alloy underneath showing through. No amount of cleaning fixes it, because there's nothing on top to remove. Re-plating is a jeweller job and a routine one.

For actual cleaning, mild soap and a soft cloth. Nothing abrasive, because abrasives take rhodium off faster than anything. Dry it properly.

Worth saying plainly: white gold isn't what we make. Our silver-tone pieces are rhodium-finished stainless steel, which gets you the same cool white without a finish that needs redoing every couple of years.

How to Clean Gold-Filled and Gold-Tone Pieces

Two very different things that often get lumped together.

Gold filled is a thick layer of gold mechanically bonded to a brass core, usually five per cent of the total weight. It sits between plated and solid in durability, and it handles a soapy clean and a soft cloth without complaint. Keep abrasives and polishing cloths away from it, since polishing cloths are designed to remove a microscopic layer of metal and there's a limit to how many times that can happen.

Gold tone, sometimes sold as costume or fashion jewellery, has no real gold in it at all. It's a coloured finish over base metal, and the finish is the whole piece. Wipe it with a dry or barely damp cloth and nothing else. Don't soak it, don't use cleaner on it, and expect it to be temporary by design.

The Rules That Hold for Every Type of Gold

Whatever you own, these don't change.

Mild soap and warm water is the default, not the fallback. Across every type on this page, the gentlest effective method is also the correct one. There's no gold that benefits from a stronger clean.

Dry it immediately. Water left sitting in a clasp or against a link causes more dulling than wear does, and it's the step people skip.

Let anything you put on your skin dry first. Aftershave, moisturiser and sunscreen all dull gold faster than daily wear. Give them a minute before the jewellery goes back on.

Store it dry and apart. A soft pouch keeps moisture off. Keeping gold away from tungsten, steel or anything harder stops it collecting scratches it didn't need. Storing pieces separately also stops chains knotting into each other.

A wipe beats a wash. Ten seconds with a soft cloth when you take a piece off does more over a year than a deep clean every few months. Most dulling never starts if the sweat and oils come off the same day.

Water, Chlorine and the Sea

Worth being precise here, because "is it waterproof" and "will water damage it" are two different questions and the answers differ.

Our 18K gold over a stainless steel core doesn't rust, tarnish or fade. Water is genuinely not a problem for it. Showering in it, getting caught in the rain, washing your hands with it on: none of that harms the piece, and it's built to be worn and not thought about.

Chlorine and salt water are a different matter, and the reason is the gold rather than the steel. Both are aggressive enough to shorten the life of any gold surface, plated, vermeil or solid. The core will be fine. The finish on top wears faster. So pools, hot tubs and the sea are the two places worth taking a gold piece off, not because it will be ruined but because the gold lasts longer if you do.

Vermeil and solid gold both want the same treatment for the same reason. Costume and cheap plated pieces should stay away from water altogether.

FAQs

Does real gold tarnish?

No. Pure gold doesn't react with air or water, so it can't tarnish or rust. What looks like tarnish on a gold piece is either surface build-up, the alloy metals in a lower-karat gold reacting, or a base metal showing through a worn finish.

Why has my gold jewellery gone dull?

Almost always skin oils, sweat and product residue building up on the surface, which a soapy clean removes. If the colour itself has changed in specific spots rather than dulling evenly, that's usually a finish wearing rather than dirt, and cleaning won't bring it back.

What does a 925 stamp on gold jewellery mean?

That the piece is gold vermeil. 925 is the sterling silver hallmark, and vermeil is gold over a solid sterling silver base, so it carries the stamp of the metal underneath rather than the gold on the surface.

Can you clean gold with vinegar or lemon juice?

Better not to. Both are acidic, and on anything containing copper, rose gold especially, they can mark the surface. They're common in home-remedy advice and there's no gold type where they beat mild soap and warm water.

Can you use an ultrasonic cleaner on gold jewellery?

On solid gold with no stones, usually yes. On anything plated or vermeil, no: the vibration works a gold layer loose over time. Avoid it on any piece with a set stone regardless of the metal, since it can loosen a setting.

Can you shower or swim in gold jewellery?

Showering is fine on solid gold, vermeil and gold over a steel core. Swimming is the one to avoid, because chlorine and salt water both shorten the life of a gold surface whatever sits beneath it. Costume and cheap plated pieces should stay dry entirely.

Where to Go From Here

Gold asks for very little once you know which kind you're holding. Mild soap, a soft cloth, dry it properly, and keep it out of the pool.

If you're adding to your own collection, the full men's gold jewellery range is the place to start, or go straight to gold chains, gold bracelets and gold rings. Our guide to the types of men's chains helps if you're deciding on a style, and what gold represents covers why it's worth wearing in the first place.