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By Hey June
Why I Refused to Build This Whole Thing on Gold-Plated Pieces Back in 2015, working out of my basement during nap times, I had a big decision to make ab...
Back in 2015, working out of my basement during nap times, I had a big decision to make about what I was actually gonna sell. The easy path? Cheap to source, cheap to price.
I went the other way, and girl, I have never once regretted it.
Gold-plated jewelry is just a teeny tiny layer of gold sprayed or dipped over a base metal. It's thin. Like, wear-away-way-faster-than-you'd-think thin, even when you baby it.
Gold-filled? Whooole different story. It's a thick layer of gold bonded through heat to a brass core, and by law it has to be 5% gold by weight.
That's about 100 times the gold of a plated piece!!
Because the gold is bonded and not sprayed on, it doesn't flake off. Only solid gold beats it for durability, and solid gold costs a whooole lot more.
When I was scraping to cover the mortgage one month at a time, trust me, I could've padded the margins with plated pieces. But I knew exactly what would happen a few months down the road. And I didn't want a single one of you feeling that.
I wanted women to buy one thing and actually get years out of it. That's the whole heart of what we do at Hey June, and plated jewelry just can't deliver that.
So everything we carry is 14k gold-filled, sterling silver, or vermeil (that's gold over a sterling silver core). All three are durable, hypoallergenic, and slow to tarnish. No exceptions!
I am about as low-maintenance as it gets with my own jewelry. I sleep in it, I shower in it, and I still get months and often years out of a piece.
Yeah... that's not something I could ever say about plated. The reason our huggies and screwbacks are so loved around here? You genuinely never have to take them off.
Not for bed, not for the shower, not for the pool!
Will metal wear eventually? Sure, girl, water and chemicals take their toll on anything over time. But gold-filled and sterling silver are built to shrug off a whole lot of real life before they ever show it.
Buying quality up front means you're not babysitting your jewelry. A quick rinse with a little Dawn and a good dry-off keeps it fresh, and honestly? That's most of the maintenance there is.
Pop it in an airtight bag when you're not wearing it, keep the heavy perfume and lotion off it when you can, and it'll keep right on going. That's it. That's the whole routine!
Low maintenance, long-lasting, fairly priced... that was always the goal. Gold-plated never fit into that picture, so it never made it into the shop.