Caring for gold-plated brass (no, you can't shower in it).

Gold-plated brass is the base material of almost every Nandai piece, and it is the part of the brand-true positioning that gets least honest care advice in the industry. Sellers tell customers their plated pieces are "lifetime" or "water-safe" or "as good as real gold". None of that is true. The honest version: gold-plated brass is a wardrobe-tier material with a real lifespan that depends entirely on how it is treated. This article walks through the actual physics of plating wear, and the routine that triples the life of a piece.

How plating works. A gold-plated brass piece starts as a brass base. The brass is polished, cleaned, and electroplated with a thin layer of gold — typically half a micron to one micron thick (one micron = one-thousandth of a millimetre). Our pieces are at the upper end of that range, roughly one micron. The plating sits on the brass like a coat of paint sits on a wall: chemically bonded, but mechanically thin. Anything that abrades the surface, dissolves the gold, or chemically attacks the brass beneath wears the plating.

What actually wears plating, ranked by severity. Number one: friction at high-pressure contact points. The clasp tongue, the earring post, the back of a maang tikka where it sits against the forehead — these are the first places to show base metal, often within six to twelve months of regular wear. There is no fix for this except not wearing the piece at all, which is not the right answer. Treat the wear at high-friction points as a feature of the material, not a defect.

Number two: chlorine. Pool water, hot-tub water, some shower water in heavily-treated municipal systems. Chlorine dissolves gold over time and corrodes brass quickly. A single afternoon at a chlorinated pool can take six months off the plating life of an earring. Never swim in plated jewellery. Never shower with plated jewellery if your shower water is heavily chlorinated (most of North America, parts of urban India). The "shower-safe" marketing language some sellers use is the most common form of dishonest care advice in the industry.

Number three: perfume, hairspray, sunscreen, body lotion. All four contain alcohols, oils, or chemical compounds that dissolve gold plating and corrode brass. The rule is: jewellery goes on last, comes off first. Spray your fragrance, set your makeup, then put the jewellery on — never the other way around. First-off because the friction of getting out of a saree blouse or fitted kurta is exactly the wrong combination of force and direction for a clasp tongue.

Number four: humidity. Tropical or coastal humidity accelerates brass corrosion at any unplated edge (the clasp, the chain link, the inside of an earring back). The fix: dry storage. Every Nandai piece ships in a cotton-felt pouch with a silica gel sachet — keep both, replace the silica every six months, store the pouches in a drawer rather than on an open dressing-table.

The three myths that cost customers money. Myth one: "real gold colour means real gold". Plating colour says nothing about the underlying material. A bright-gold plated brass piece and a bright-gold solid-gold piece look identical at arm's length; the difference is the underlying material, which the seller is responsible for disclosing. Myth two: "anti-tarnish" coatings make plated jewellery permanent. Anti-tarnish lacquer slows the visible-tarnish reaction by about two-to-four times; it does not stop plating wear at friction points or chemical attack. Myth three: "you can re-plate it later". Re-plating is technically possible at a Jaipur workshop for roughly ₹400-800 per piece, but the result is often visibly thinner than the original and the soldered joints can release during the re-plating process. We do not offer re-plating as a service for this reason; we replace the piece instead.

The realistic lifespan summary. A gold-plated brass Nandai piece worn for festive occasions four to six times per year (Diwali, Karva Chauth, weddings of family members, occasional dinners) typically holds its full plating for three to five years with the routine above. A piece worn weekly (a working professional's daily statement earring) shows visible base-metal wear at friction points within twelve to eighteen months. A piece worn through a single chlorinated-pool afternoon may be unrecoverable. We tell every customer this honestly, because the alternative — pretending the plating is forever — is the kind of seller behaviour our NO-CHEATING rule exists to prevent.