You won't believe this, but I used to be obsessed with gold plated jewelry, especially the ones from big-name brands like Mejuri and Missoma. Until one day, I found out that all of them ended up tarnished. Can you imagine how betrayed I felt?

I went on a mission to find alternatives. Solid gold seemed like the obvious choice, but let's face it, it's not exactly wallet-friendly. That's when I stumbled upon gold filled jewelry, which is only a fraction of the price of solid gold. It has a thick gold layer that is heat-pressure bonded to the base metal. It can have up to 100 times more gold than gold plated. If you take good care of them, gold-filled jewelry is less likely to tarnish.

I'll be real with you—I had my doubts at first. But I decided to give it a shot and ordered gold filled jewelry from multiple brands to test them out. I wore those jewelry everywhere—for work, to bed, even in the shower. After a month, a couple of the super cheap ones did show some tarnish. But here's the exciting part: 90% of them passed the test and still looked as good as new! Can you believe it? After that, I became a total believer in gold filled jewelry. Now, I stick to high-quality gold filled and solid gold pieces.

In the next article, I will cover how to identify high quality gold filled jewelry. Stay tuned!