Before talking everything about Karat Gold, have you ever wondered where gold came from? Gold actually comes from shooting stars! When a supernova explodes, it generates gold that is then scattered into space and gets incorporated to other stars and planets. Gold is literally stardust and is quite a magical and enchanting metal to wear!
Karat indicates gold purity
While gold is incredibly beautiful, it is not ideal to use in its pure form to create jewelry because it is a soft metal making it less than ideal for daily wear. To make durable gold jewelry, some other metals come in the mix to bring their strength. The mix of different metals is called an alloy. Typically we find silver, copper and palladium as metals to be mixed in a gold alloy.
The way we measure the amount of gold in an alloy is in 24 parts that are called karat.
24k gold is pure gold; it consists of 24 parts of only gold.18K gold is 18 parts gold out of 24 so 75% of pure gold and 6/24 parts aka 25% of other metals like silver and copper. 14k gold is 58.3% gold and 10K gold is 41.6% gold.
Karat influences gold color
Gold being the yellow alloy in the mix, the higher the karat, the yellower the resulting color. Once can observe the difference between 10K to 18K in yellow, white or rose gold.
The difference between a 18K yellow gold and 18K white gold for example resides in the nature of the other alloys used in the 6 out of 24 parts. For both there is palladium, silver and nickel but white gold includes also zinc in the mix.
The difference between 18K yellow gold and 18K rose gold resides in the proportion of copper used in the 6 out of 24 parts. Rose gold has a higher copper content, giving the alloy a more pinkish color.
How to pick the ideal karat for you
To pick the optimal karat gold for your ring, there are several factors to take into account: physical activity level, color preference, skin sensitivity and of course budget.
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Hardness: gold is a soft metal so the higher the karat aka the higher content in pure gold the softer the metal is.
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Color: gold being its characteristic yellow in its pure form, the higher the gold content the yellower the color.
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Skin sensitivity: gold is a hypoallergenic metal, lower karat alloys introduce more proportion of silver, copper and nickel that can induce reactions in very sensitive skins.
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Price: gold is a rare metal that comes at a high ticket price, the higher the karat the pricier the alloy.
| 10K | 14K | 18K | |
| Hardness | +++ | ++ | ++ |
| Color | + | ++ | +++ |
| Hypoallergenic | + | ++ | +++ |
| Price | + | ++ | +++ |
In most cases, 14K gold presents an ideal combination of wear and tear resistance, depth of color, skin neutrality and relative affordability. This explains why 14K gold makes up about 90% of gold jewelry sales in the US.
In addition, 14K gold is also considered the best formulation for white and rose gold. The 18K versions of white and rose gold contain too much yellow gold to render the desired white or rose colors. 18K white gold in particular has a yellowish color that needs to be rhodium plated to give that crisp white appearance. That plating will fade over time and will need to be reapplied periodically.