Rhodium allergy?

A. Hi Crystal. Unfortunately, yes, there is a good chance the black will wear off quickly. The jewelry is not made of black rhodium; rather it is has a layer of rhodium plating [adv: black rhodium plating solution on eBay or Amazon [affil links] millionths of an inch thick on it; and it may have a layer of allergenic nickel below it.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi Nathan. Unfortunately, I don't think we can extrapolate very far based on one woman's experience. The rhodium could be the issue, the blackening agent could be the issue, a biological growth that coincides with replating could be the issue, and you can't even eliminate the placebo effect except statistically.

Assuming she wants black, she could try having it plated in black ruthenium to see if that helps though.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hello Ginna. Although it is, I suppose, very vaguely possible that you are allergic to rhodium, it seems far more likely that the jewelry in question contained nickel. It is common to plate nickel before plating rhodium, and the rhodium is porous. Plus, some white gold contains nickel. The allergy problem with white gold jewelry is usually the nickel.

A. Next time when you purchase white gold jewelry, ask for nickel-free jewelry. And to test it, carry a small magnet with you, if it sticks to the jewelry then it has nickel, if it doesn't then its nickel-free.

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Nickel Detect /
Nickel Alert

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Amazon

(affil links)

A. We appreciate your taking the time to respond, Hitesh, but I don't agree that a magnet can be reliably used to assure that jewelry has no nickel in it. If it's actually made of iron, that's highly magnetic. Nickel plating is magnetic, but thin enough that there may not be a strong attraction. I don't believe that white gold is magnetic whether or not it contains nickel.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2005

A. I agree with Ted about the magnet, I don't think that is a very accurate way to determine if there is Ni in/on jewelry.

Regards,

Brian C. Gaylets
McKinney Mfg. Assa Abloy America - Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
2005

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A. I had read about the magnet trick. I bought a necklace supposedly 14kt gold ... Broke out in a horrendous rash ... bought a magnet and that necklace clung to that thing tight! KIK

Margaret McKay
- Gainesville Florida
January 18, 2016

A. I have to write that I just tried this test, and it does seem to hold water. I recently developed a fierce nickel allergy after wearing an expensive watch with a stainless steel case back while hiking. Long story, short: I bought a titanium watch, and though that that would solve my problems. However, it did not. Today, using the magnet "trick", I tested the watch. The case is non magnetic (titanium), but the case back is highly magnetic. I reckon it is stainless steel. What a shame. I've bought adhesive case back covers in the meantime, and will hope that they solve the problem.

Ted Way
Watch collector - Lexington, Kentucky
December 31, 2021

A. Thanks Ted. Strangely, the non-magnetic stainless steels (303, 304, 316, etc.) contain nickel and the non-magnetic stainless steels (410, 416, 420, etc.) don't.

Luck & Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
January 2022

Q. Hi, I am a jewelry lover and love to buy it just to wear or collect. my nickname is mini Mr. T. I bought a necklace and bracelet from a jewelry store; the guy said it was a 10k gold and rhodium mix. but the color of the set is a very dark gold color. He said it had a lifetime warranty and that it would not have any problems but about three weeks later I have a rash and bumps on my neck, I have been wearing gold for over twelve years with no problems. Could this be an effect of the rhodium or is this just a cheap necklace? What could be the cause of this problem? Thanks

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TUTORIAL:
(to help readers better understand the Q&A's)

Rhodium is so rare that it is not feasible to mine it for its own sake. Rather, when platinum is mined, a small percentage of what is recovered is rhodium. So, when platinum is in demand and a lot of mining is going on, rhodium costs about the same as gold. But when platinum mining is down, rhodium is nearly unavailable and it's price can be even 15X as high as gold.

A. The cost of precious metals like gold and rhodium varies constantly, but as a rule of thumb rhodium can be anywhere from the price of gold to 15X as costly as gold. So, is there any rhodium within this alloy? For this and other reasons it's highly unlikely. It's probably cheap jewelry, and it may contain nickel that is bothering you.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2007

Q. Before my wedding (4/20/07) I got my engagement ring Rhodium dipped so that it would be shiny, etc., for pictures. It is 18K white gold. Starting probably a month after the wedding, my finger has become red and itchy underneath primarily the engagement ring, because it has a wide band.

Is it common to have Rhodium allergy? If so -- is it possible to remove the plating?

A. Hi Jessica. I think it's more likely that you are allergic to the nickel in your white gold ring than to the rhodium plating on it. Rhodium is so acid resistant that it's usually not possible to chemically remove it. The rhodium can be polished away by a jeweler if the design in not intricate and with unreachable recesses, but you might well be allergic to the ring anyway since white gold may or may not contain nickel.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. My daughter is allergic to most jewelry; knowing this her fiancee had her engagement ring made with palladium.
The jeweler then did the electroplating with Rhodium for shine. I have been researching Rhodium online, and found that some rhodium is a byproduct of nickel mining operations in Sudberry region of Ontario, Canada. Please do not assume someone has "cheap" jewelry. If you do not know if the Rhodium came from Canada (bad) or South America (good stuff)
Just for Your information. Thanks

Angela Callahan
- Atlanta, Georgia USA
2007

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2007

Nobody called rhodium 'cheap', Angela -- it's currently 10 times the cost of gold! And don't be misled by the word 'byproduct'. Whether from Canada or South Africa, rhodium is rhodium, and it is so rare & expensive that no one can afford to mine it for itself, but can can only get it as a byproduct of refining platinum.

It is also true though, that it can be electroplated very very thin - a few millionths of an inch thick. So if something has only a thin plating of rhodium on it, that's not much rhodium. There are many causes for rashes, but certainly an allergy to nickel is common, and most USA white gold has nickel in it, whereas an allergy to rhodium sounds unlikely enough that most of us don't even know if it's possible.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

Q. I received 14KT white gold stud earrings with rhodium plating from my husband for Christmas and my ears become irritated every time I wear them. Is there anything I can change on the earrings to stop this reaction? Perhaps change the posts to platinum or 18KT gold?

Q. I can identify with a couple of these responses. I ordered a wedding ring guard set. First it started to turn, then it got tighter on my finger & then my hand broke out. I had to go to the Dr. as my hand got worse & started swelling. I've talked to the company to find a solution. I've ordered many things but never had this problem. Thank you.

A. Hi Shivaan. There are no famous or infamous chemical reactions that require or preclude a nickel underplate before gold, rhodium, or silver plating. Any of the three can be plated directly onto other substrates or can be plated on top of nickel. It's probably more a case of what is frequently done rather than what is "required".

Silver, as we know, is very prone to tarnishing; several different approaches to tarnish prevention are possible, one of which is rhodium plating. Rhodium is a precious metal which doesn't tarnish, and it's rather similar in color to silver, so silver often receives a very thin plating of rhodium to deter tarnish until the jewelry is sold, and maybe somewhat longer. There is little advantage to doing nickel plating of silver jewelry before this thin flash of rhodium plating, so although it could be done, it rarely is.

In the case of gold plating, there is often a layer of nickel plating below it, mostly because of the high cost of gold. It's much cheaper to get the required corrosion resistance and shininess by nickel plating and applying only a thin layer of gold than by plating the gold thick enough to be free of porosity and pinholes, and sufficiently leveled for a bright shine.

Rhodium plating can be done on white gold or on other materials like brass. If plating onto white gold, the rhodium need only be thick enough for good color correction and reflectivity, in which case a nickel underlayer is not usually done. If rhodium plating is done on yellow gold or brass though, it may be prohibitively expensive to rely on just rhodium plating to change the color to silvery; usually nickel plating would do most of the color change work so a thin coating of rhodium can be used.

But in any of these cases, it is possible to avoid nickel allergy issues by doing a "white bronze" plating in lieu of the nickel plating. Good luck, and thanks for the chance to explain my understanding of nickel underplating.

Regards,

A. Hi Emily. Although I suppose anything is possible, allergies to Rhodium seem unlikely because it is a very inert precious metal (the thinking being that if neither strong acids nor strong alkalis are able to dissolve it, nor are strong solvents able to react with it, what could be in body chemistry that is capable of doing so?) My guess is that they nickel plated the ring and added only a thin and porous layer of rhodium, insufficient to protect you from the nickel they applied.

In any case, waiting for it to wear off doesn't sound practical, and I think another jeweler can rhodium plate it adequately that you'll no longer be allergic to it. Note that I said "my guess".

Regards,

  Thanks Ted! I will take it to a different jeweller and have them redo it. I had to take benadryl today in order to take it off because my finger began swelling. Not good!
Thanks again for your response!

A. Hi. One other quick thing that occurred to me since my posting is that maybe it just wasn't rinsed really well, and some contaminant in that porosity is causing the reaction? Try soaking your ring in vinegar ⇦in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and peroxide for 15 minutes, then boiling it for a couple of minutes as discussed in letter 33777 (Suspend if from string so it doesn't bang against the pot.)

Regards,

 Thanks again! I will definitely try that!

 Hi Mary. It strikes me that allergy to rhodium sounds extremely unlikely because it is such an inert precious metal, so I think you want to double-check that you exactly understood the allergist. But if you've already one that, I'm certainly not claiming any allergy training, and a jeweler may be able to polish off the rhodium plating.

Regards,

Nickel Guard

on eBay or

Amazon

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A. Hi. You can coat the jewelry with clear nail varnish, polyurethane, or specialty products made for the purpose. These are all clear organic coatings.

Regards,

A. Hi Karen, hi Kiara.

Virtually no rings are solid rhodium, probably not one in five hundred thousand, because it's a totally impractical material to make rings from for many reasons. I'm virtually sure that the jewelers verified that they were rhodium plated, not solid rhodium. Rhodium plating is cracked, resembling a dry lake bed at a small scale. And underneath that rhodium is either a layer of nickel plating or 'white gold' which may have a lot of nickel in it. Nickel corrosion salts are green and many people are allergic to them.

I'm not arguing with you or correcting you, only offering an alternate theory. You're under no obligation to accept it :-)

You can try coating your rings with some sort of lacquer or clearcoat, but it will have to be redone frequently.

Or you can buy your rings from Europe; nickel is not permitted in rings in Europe, whereas in the USA lobbying means that business interests usually trump consumer's best interests; as many as 40% of young women have acquired an allergy to nickel due to so much exposure, and yet it remains unregulated. Good luck.

Regards,