18K Gold PVD Plating Explained: Why It Doesn't Tarnish
"Gold-plated" covers a huge range of quality, from jewellery that turns green within a fortnight to pieces that hold their colour for years of daily wear. The difference usually comes down to one process: Physical Vapor Deposition, or PVD.
What PVD actually means
Traditional gold plating dips a base metal into an electroplating bath, depositing a thin — often uneven — layer of gold onto the surface. PVD works differently: inside a vacuum chamber, gold is vaporised at high temperature and bonds to the metal underneath at a molecular level. The result is a coating that's denser, more even, and mechanically locked to the base metal rather than sitting loosely on top of it.
Why that matters for tarnish
Most "gold turning your finger green" complaints come from moisture and oxygen reaching the base metal through gaps or thin spots in a traditional plate. A properly applied PVD layer is thick and uniform enough to seal the metal underneath almost completely, which is why PVD-plated pieces can be worn in the shower, at the beach, or through a full day of perfume and hand cream without the colour shifting.
Vaporised gold doesn't sit on the surface — it becomes part of it.
How to spot the difference
You can't always tell PVD from standard plating by looking, but you can tell by asking. A few questions worth putting to any jewellery brand:
- Is the plating PVD, or electroplated / gold-dipped?
- What's the base metal — brass, stainless steel, or something that reacts with skin?
- Is there a nickel-free guarantee, for anyone with sensitive ears or skin?
Every piece in our collection is finished this way: a noble brass or surgical-steel base, vacuum-sealed under 18K gold, with no nickel in the mix.
Caring for PVD gold
PVD is durable, not indestructible. Avoid direct contact with chlorine and abrasive surfaces, and store pieces flat rather than tangled together — most of the wear PVD jewellery shows over time comes from scratching against other metal, not from the plating itself failing.