There are however gold alloys which appear white, silvery, or grey. When jewellers speak of white gold, they mean white gold alloys. In most other major languages these alloys are described as grey rather than white. Now that you know what white gold is, you will realise why it turns yellowish. It is common practice to rhodium plate all white gold jewellery, and some platinum.
Rhodium is very bright, and highly reflective.
This varies from gray through to distinctly yellowish gray. On some cheap jewellery, yellow gold alloys are rhodium plated, so that when the plating wears out, the natural yellow colour of the alloy appears. When the rhodium wears off these rings, they usually look dreadful. In the few weeks after we first published this page, we received quite a lot of e-mails all asking basically the same question, how long would or should the plating last. It seems as if most of the enquirers had bought white gold rings which had started to discolour within a few years.