From beautiful earrings to eye catching bracelets and pendants, silver jewellery has become one of the most popular ornamental purchases for both casual days out and special occasions. Because the yellow tone of gold doesn’t appeal to everybody, silver jewellery has continued to provide a superb alternative that can match individual skin tones and glamorous outfits alike.

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Silver remains one of the finest metals to be used for jewellery and the purest form, which is called fine silver, consists of 99.9% pure silver. Unfortunately, pure silver doesn’t make particularly good jewellery. Because it remains so soft, the shape can easily become distorted and the oxidation process that causes tarnishing is very aggressive.

To alleviate this problem, pure silver is mixed with other alloys to increase its durability.

The most common silver found in ornamental jewellery is sterling silver, a composition of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. When combined, these two elements provide a tough and resistant finished product. This allows silver to be worn for everyday use with a minimal risk of tarnishing. Sterling silver also maintains a wonderful glean that epitomises silver, particularly since rhodium was included to provide a more resistant finish.

As well as sterling silver, there are other silvers that are produced from a mix of pure silver and other metals. A common form of these mixes is silver 800 which is an 80/20 mix of silver and other alloys. There are also many varieties of silver plated jewellery but these often tend to flake as the silver begins to wear off. Silver plated jewellery proves to be a poor long term investment and should be avoided wherever possible.

The same can be said of nickel silver jewellery, which doesn’t actually contain silver but is composed of several different metals to give a silver effect.

A higher quality silver product is always beneficial, and can remain tarnish-free if properly maintained.