Beware the rose gold plated silver

I am absolutely fuming!!!

Summer 07 I bought a bracelet , part leather, part pearl and the metal was silver plated with rose gold. I wore it a bit at the time, then put it away in its Gems box, still pristine.

Today I dug it out as people were asking to see what faceted pearls looked like - and I was horrified to see the disgusting state of the metal.

Don't know if you can tell from these pix:





Basically, it no longer looks like rose gold. Nor has the plating just vanished so it looks like silver. Oh no, it's discoloured and vile and looks like cheap costume jewellery from a lucky bag It's mottled, the bits that are rose look like copper, the bits that aren't look like tin. It's nasty.
I might have a go with my spray diamonique cleaner stuff - can't make things any worse.

Of course the warranty is only 6 months, so I don't have any recourse. But I would expect such a thing to last my lifetime with careful wear, not die before 2 years is up.

I don't know if this is a Gems thing or if all plated jewellery is the same, but the watches I was looking at on Rocks TV are crossed off my wish list now for sure.

Anyway, word to the wise for anyone considering a purchase...
Don't be as dumb as I was.

ouch anne that bracelet looks bad now

you could try the Medallion silver plating kit (they sell it on PitchTV's website, but it might be cheaper elsewhere on the web). I rescued a gold plated amethyst ring from Past Times which started to wear off and it's been v successful. Instead of a dipping plating like the medallion gold (which I could never get to work well) it's just a solution rubbed onto the surface and the silver content adheres to the base metal or silver underneath (well I think that's how it works)

At least if you turn the metal parts silver you'd be able to enjoy wearing it again....love the facetted pearls btw.

Jude x

Before you start any cleaning ............. it's rose gold over silver right? In that case I think you need to find out whether a gold OR silver cleaner would be appropriate? You don't want to strip it off all together (mind you it might look better if the rose gold is now blotchy and uneven).

Sorry to hear about this Anne. It looks like some sort of oxidisation has occurred. I hope you get it sorted hun. x

I love the colour of your faceted pearls
but.. what a shame about the metal bits and very dissapointing for you I do hope you can find a good solution because its so nice otherwise and i'm sure you would have a lot of wear from it for years to come

Hi Anne, I bought a gold plated over silver watch a while back and that too tarnishes. I was more than worried when I saw it but I used the Gems cleaning cloth (or any jewellery cloth impregnated with cleaner) and that seemed to work. It doesn't last that long but I know can do a quick buff up with the cloth and it looks as good as new.Hth

Thanks for your input everyone. I've calmed down since I posted!
I've been contemplating contacting Gems as per Meesh's post to find out what they recommend. Have to say, I'm dubious there's any point since their CS has apparently been going down the toilet. (I reckon that once upon a time someone from the company would have read this and been in touch.)
But seeing that Jo's actually had the same thing, I might give a silver cloth a go anyway, it can't do any worse damage than is there already in all honesty.
And Akimbo, I actually already own a Medallion silver kit, I had never even thought of using it for this, so it's definitely another option.
I also have a spray Diamonique cleaner, so I guess there are various options open!

Quick update.
The weirdest thing happened!!!
I finally decided to try a cleaning job on it tonight, so I started with the silver cloth as suggested by Jo. Made it shiny, but still mottled.
So I decided to bite the bullet and use my spray cleaner. Again, made no difference whatsoever.
So now I'm worrying - should I break out the Medallion? Akimbo's post reminded me I have some already, so by now I'm thinking I can't make it any worse.
But weirdly, when I took the silver plating stuff to it - it didn't turn it silver, it just wiped all the discolouration off it - it's as if it was never there! Perfect rose gold finish again???
Anyway, it's not ideal because of the enamel, leather and pearls, but it doesn't seem to have done any damage to them that I can see.
I'm quite pleased with the result, but I've no idea how on earth that worked!

you could always do a magic act in future! glad you found the right solution (sorry about the pun) in the end hun.