The cleaning of sterling silver can be a burdensome task, which is why much of the silver jewelry manufactured today has various types of anti-tarnish finishes ranging from a flash overlay of pure silver, waxes, proprietary coatings and the currently very popluar rhodium plating. Rhodium in fact is a much more expensive raw material, it is more expensive than platinium, but does not have quite the high brilliance of silver, however its superior anti-tarnish property outweigh its lower reflectivity value.
Rhodium plating has been used in many many silver jewelry. It looks just like platinium, but some of the silver jewelry prefer to without plating or plated with only silver in order to show the white silver color itself. But rhodium plated silver jewelry can not become tarnish so easily, the silver itself can easily become tarnish as time goes because of being oxidated.
About Sterling Silver:
Silver has long been used as a means of decorating both home and individual. In the early days, Silver jewelry was pure silver, and very prone to tarnish, and because of it's pliable, soft nature, silver often lost it's shape or was easily damaged. Thus, sterling silver was produced. Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver mixed with other metals such as copper and zinc. This mixture is much better for making jewelry. Sterling Silver Jewelry is harder and less prone to tarnish. Unless it is covered in Rhodium or another heavy metal, sterling jewelry will still tarnish and easy to become yellow and dark, but it is very easy to clean and take care of.
Jewelry metal at ExclusiveOnU is .925 Sterling Silver unless otherwise noted.
