What is Sterling Silver?
Is Sterling Silver real silver? Is Sterling Silver pure silver? Which one is better as a jewellery choice?
These are great questions and have been asked many times over. To put it simply, there is Pure Silver and there is Sterling Silver. They are two distinctly different materials with different silver content compositions.
What is Pure Silver?
Pure Silver (or fine silver) has a silver content of 99.9%, with very few trace elements (0.01%). Due to its high purity, pure silver has a high polish and is very soft and malleable. It doesn’t have the hardness of gold and is generally too soft to make most silver jewellery, thus it is often alloyed with other metals to make it harder and more durable.
What is Sterling Silver?
Sterling Silver is an alloy of 92.5% pure silver with 7.5% copper (most of the time as copper is a non-allergenic metal). This percentage of pure silver is why we refer to Sterling Silver as ‘925 Silver’. The addition of copper makes silver harder and easier to work with, without compromising on its shine and colour. Sterling Silver is also sometimes stamped with “925” or “SS” to indicate that it is real Sterling Silver. However, this is not a mandatory requirement globally to hallmark silver jewellery with these abbreviations. Most of the jewellery pieces that we own and wear are likely to be Sterling Silver, and may not carry the “925” stamp at all as the stamp may be distracting on certain designs.
Does Sterling Silver tarnish?
The answer is yes. Pure silver can tarnish from exposure to the air. The same goes for Sterling Silver, which is more easily tarnished than pure silver due to the addition of copper or other alloy metals to it. As copper tarnishes easily, when you combine such a metal with silver which is also tarnishable, the tarnishing process naturally happens easily.
Therefore, tarnish accumulating on your silver jewellery pieces is to be expected and is normal. In fact, when your silver items tarnish, it is an indication that it is real silver!
How to care for your Sterling Silver jewellery pieces?
Simply clean off the tarnish with a gentle dry cleaning cloth and your Sterling Silver pieces will usually revert to their pristine condition. With Sterling Silver, you can rest assured that it does not rust with normal use.
Find out how to care for your J. Lawrence Sterling Silver jewellery pieces.
Can one be allergic to Sterling Silver?
Well, it depends. While genuine Sterling Silver must be 92.5% pure silver, the grey area lies in manufacturers who may fill the remaining 7.5% with other types of metal such as nickel. Sensitivity to nickel is the most common allergy that most people have. Any direct contact with nickel will result in skin itching and irritation.
It is also worth mentioning that silver sold in some parts of the world may have a lower purity than 92.5%. You may have heard of German Silver, Russian Silver or nickel silver being passed off as silver jewellery. These metals may contain zinc (e.g. German Silver) and alloys of copper and nickel, and I will advise avoiding such metals especially when you have a metal allergy. These can cause skin rashes and for some of us who have developed nickel allergies over time, these metals can aggravate your skin condition.
Silver or Gold?
While silver jewellery will look lovely on almost anyone, sometimes it also depends on your skin tone - whether you are “cool-toned’ or “warm-toned”. Those with cool tones often look bright and stunning with silver jewellery, whereas those with warm skin tones fare better with gold jewellery pieces. Knowing your skin tone will really help you pick between silver and gold.
Curious to find out more about your skin tone? Here’s a blog I wrote with a few simple tests that you can use to determine yours.
(Disclaimer: All information in this article, including those relating to health conditions, are for informational purposes only and should not be used as a substitute or alternative for medical or healing purposes.)