SHow does the gold get on -

Electroplating is the established method: the piece goes into a chemical bath, and an electric current pulls gold ions onto its surface. It is not inherently a cheap process — it's a thickness question. A flash plate lays down a fraction of a micron, essentially just enough for colour, and on daily wear it starts going within months. A full one-micron plate is a different object entirely, and will hold for a long time with reasonable care. Both are legally and conventionally described as "gold-plated," which is the actual problem.

PVD — Physical Vapour Deposition — is a vacuum process. The piece sits in a chamber with a solid target of the coating material, the target is vaporised, and those atoms condense onto the surface and bond to it atomically. Stronger adhesion than a chemical bath can achieve, and no toxic plating solutions. But "PVD" alone tells you almost nothing, because how you vaporise the target changes everything.

Multi-arc ion plating strikes an electric arc across the target. Fast, cheap, high-throughput, which is why it dominates volume manufacturing. It also throws off molten macroparticles — microscopic droplets that land on the piece and leave a rougher, less even film. Acceptable for a hard ceramic coating. Poor for laying down a thin precious-metal layer where colour evenness is the entire point.

Magnetron sputtering uses a magnetically confined plasma to knock atoms off the target one at a time. Slower and costlier per piece, but the film comes out denser, smoother and consistent in thickness. It's the method you use when what you're depositing is actually worth something. It's what we use.

The gold that isn't gold

Here's the part that surprises people. In most mass-market "18K gold PVD" jewellery, the gold colour isn't gold.

Titanium nitride gives a warm yellow. Zirconium nitride, a paler brass tone. Titanium carbonitride, bronze and rose. Chromium nitride, grey. These are ceramic compounds — the colour comes from the chemistry, not from any gold content. They're very hard, cheap to arc-deposit, and they're what sits on most "18K gold PVD stainless steel" listings.

Sputtered gold is a different proposition. The target is gold, so what lands on the piece is gold, deposited atom by atom over a barrier layer. The colour is real gold's colour because it is real gold — warmer, with depth to it, rather than the flat hardness nitride has in daylight.

Both get written up as "18K gold PVD". Neither description is technically false. One has precious metal in it and one has none, and the listing gives you no way to tell.

The number that actually matters

If a piece is electroplated, the single most useful thing you can know is how thick the layer is — and it's the one number almost no Indian listing carries.

Flash plating is a fraction of a micron. It exists to give colour, not longevity, and it's what sits on most fashion jewellery at the lowest price points. Nothing wrong with it if that's what you're buying and you know it.

One micron is roughly five to twenty times that, depending on how thin the flash was. It's the point at which a plated piece becomes something you wear regularly for years rather than a season.

2.5 microns on sterling silver is the international standard for gold vermeil. In India the word is unregulated, so it gets used loosely.

We plate at both flash and one micron depending on the piece, and we say which. That's the part we'd argue for as an industry norm: not that thicker is always better — a flash-plated seasonal piece at the right price is a perfectly honest product — but that the buyer should be told which one they're holding.

The base metal decides more about the life of a piece than the finish does.

Stainless steel is the durability answer. Hard, chemically stable, survives the gym and the sea. It's also the reason cheap ceramic PVD exists — nitride films need a hard, dimensionally stable substrate to bond to, so they live on steel almost exclusively. What you give up: steel can't be resized, is difficult to repair, has no material value, and gives a designer very little freedom. Fine detail, dimensional casting and enamel work aren't really available to you in steel. It's a material for simple, indestructible forms.

Brass is copper and zinc, usually around two-thirds copper. It casts beautifully, holds fine detail, takes enamel, has the weight in hand that people associate with good jewellery, and it's naturally gold-coloured, so the finish sits on a sympathetic base rather than fighting it. That's why designed jewellery — the kind with actual shapes and colour in it — is overwhelmingly built on brass rather than steel. It's a design material, not a compromise.

Sterling silver is 92.5% silver throughout. Real material value, resizable, repairable, replatable, and worth keeping for decades. It's also several times the cost, which is why it belongs to pieces you're buying for the long horizon rather than the season.

Brass, honestly

Brass has real drawbacks and it's worth stating them plainly, because how a maker handles them is the whole difference between a ₹299 piece and a considered one.

Bare brass tarnishes. Copper reacts with oxygen and moisture and darkens. In Indian humidity, fast. This is why the finish matters so much: a dense, well-bonded layer over a proper barrier is what stands between the alloy and the air. A thin electroplated layer with pinholes in it isn't.

Bare brass marks skin green. Copper salts form when copper meets the acids in sweat. Harmless, washes off, and it only happens where skin is actually touching brass — meaning where the finish has worn through or was never continuous.

Barrier layers vary. Plating over brass needs an intermediate layer between the alloy and the gold, and the industry's cheap default is nickel — the most common cause of metal contact allergy. The EU limits how much nickel jewellery may release into skin. India has no equivalent rule, so it's worth asking rather than assuming.

The alloy ratio is rarely stated. Brass isn't one material — the copper-to-zinc ratio changes the colour, the ductility and how the metal behaves over time. Higher-copper brass runs warmer in tone and resists dezincification better than the cheaper high-zinc alloys used for volume costume jewellery. We cast in 80:20 — four parts copper to one part zinc — which is a specification rather than an "alloy." That distinction matters more than it sounds: in unregulated supply chains composition genuinely drifts, and lead contamination in cheap imported costume jewellery has been documented repeatedly in other markets. India sets no jewellery-specific limits on base metal composition, so your safeguard is the manufacturer, not the regulator.

None of this is an argument against brass. It's an argument for knowing who made the piece.

How to read an Indian jewellery listing

Two questions get you most of the way: what is the base metal, and is the gold layer actually gold. A maker who knows their own process answers both in a sentence. A reseller changes the subject.

So what should you buy?

Ceramic PVD on steel if you want one indestructible thing you never take off, and you don't care about design detail, resizing, or material value.

Flash-plated brass if you want a trend piece for a season at the lowest sensible price, bought knowingly rather than by accident.

One-micron plated or sputtered gold on well-made brass if you want designed jewellery — shape, colour, detail, weight — with a finish that's genuinely gold and genuinely built to last, at a price that lets you own more than one piece.

Sterling silver if you want material value and a piece to keep for decades, and you're buying accordingly.

Four different products for four different jobs, not a ranking. The problem is only that the listings make them look identical.

Frequently asked questions

Is PVD jewellery real gold?
Depends entirely on the target material. Arc-plated steel pieces are usually titanium or zirconium nitride — ceramic, gold-coloured, no gold in them. Sputtered pieces using a gold target have a genuinely gold layer. The listing rarely distinguishes, so ask.

What's the difference between magnetron sputtering and multi-arc ion plating?
Both are PVD. Arc vaporises the target with an electric arc — fast and cheap, but it throws droplets that leave the film rougher and less even. Sputtering knocks atoms off with a confined plasma — slower, but denser, smoother and consistent in thickness, which is what you need when you're depositing gold rather than ceramic.

Will PVD gold on brass turn my skin green?
Not while the layer is intact — skin never touches the brass. Green marking happens where a finish has worn through or was porous to begin with, which is why the density of the layer and the quality of the barrier under it matter more than any "anti-tarnish" claim on the listing.

How long does a sputtered gold finish last?
Far longer than electroplating, which typically fades within months on a daily-wear piece. A sputtered gold finish holds through years of regular wear, where a flash plate starts going within months. It's still a surface layer, so friction points — the inside of a ring band, a clasp — will show wear first, and how you store and wear it makes a real difference. We support ours for one to two years.

What's the difference between flash plating and 1 micron plating?
Thickness, and it's a large gap — flash is a fraction of a micron and delivers colour rather than longevity, while a one-micron layer is the point where a plated piece survives regular wear for years. Both get sold as "gold plated," so the number is worth asking for.

Is brass jewellery safe to wear?
Copper and zinc aren't harmful through skin contact. The genuine concerns are nickel in barrier layers and inconsistent alloy composition in unregulated supply chains — both of which come down to who manufactured the piece rather than the material itself.

Why does my gold plated ring turn my finger green?
The plating has worn through at the contact point and you're touching the copper-bearing base. It's the finish failing, not a property of gold.

Is stainless steel jewellery better?
Better at surviving neglect. Worse at nearly everything else — it can't be resized, is difficult to repair, has no material value, and gives a designer almost no room for detail or colour.

Lunaya is designed in-house and handcrafted in Jaipur, cast in 80:20 brass. Our PVD line uses a real gold layer applied by magnetron sputtering rather than arc — denser, more even, and actual gold rather than a nitride imitating it, holding through years of regular wear. Our plated line is offered at flash or one micron, and we tell you which. Sterling silver is available on custom orders. Browse the full collection.