Choosing a precious metal for your forever ring isn't just an aesthetic choice. It's a considered decision about your daily habits and how it will hold up against your other jewellery. At Theadore + Co, every piece we create is meant to become a keepsake, so before you start stacking, layering, or gifting alongside other jewellery, it's worth understanding how different metals wear with each other.
Getting to Know Your Karats
Gold in its purest form (24 karat) is beautiful but too soft to survive daily wear over a lifetime, so it's blended with other metals to give it the strength it needs for wedding pieces.
- 9 karat gold contains 37.5% pure gold, with the remainder made up of a hardening alloy. It's the hardest and most durable of the common gold karats, with a lighter, more muted colour. This makes it our most popular choice for men's wedding bands, as it stands up well to the daily wear and tear that comes with an active lifestyle.
- 14 karat gold contains just under 60% pure gold, with the remainder made up of a hardening alloy. It has a warm, slightly muted glow and holds up well to daily knocks.
- 18 karat gold contains 75% pure gold. It has a deeper, richer colour and a softer feel underhand, beautiful, but slightly more vulnerable to friction than lower karat pieces.
The takeaway: the higher the karat, the purer (and softer) the gold. That difference in hardness is exactly why mixing karats deserves a second thought.
When rings of different karats are stacked, the harder, lower karat piece will wear against the softer, higher karat piece with every point of contact.
Over time, this contact can cause wear on the softer metal, not just surface scratches, but a gradual thinning that can eventually weaken a band, clasp, or setting. Because the two metals differ in hardness, they wear at different rates whenever they're in repeated contact.
Platinum Beside Gold
Platinum earns its reputation as a "forever" metal for good reason. Our platinum pieces are crafted at a very high purity, which makes platinum considerably denser and more hard wearing than any karat of gold sitting next to it.
That strength is wonderful on its own, but it becomes a problem in combination. A platinum ring worn against a gold one won't lose meaningful thickness over decades. The gold ring beside it, however, could slowly wear down, simply because platinum doesn't yield the way gold does. It's not that platinum is "attacking" the gold; it's that one metal gives way under pressure and the other doesn't.
How to Wear (and Store) Mixed Metals Well
We're not asking you to give up layering, we're asking you to layer with intention.
- Keep like with like. Where possible, stack pieces of the same metal type and karat together. It's the simplest way to avoid uneven wear altogether.
- Store metals apart. Even at rest, jewellery touching in a drawer or box can transfer tarnish or cause tiny surface marks. Give each piece its own space.
Every piece we make is designed to be worn, loved, and eventually passed down. If you're curious whether specific pieces in your collection are safe to wear together, reach out. We're always happy to talk it through via email (hello@theadoreandco.com) or a private consultation.
