At Ombre Claire, we mainly sell jewelry. When you come to the store or when you visit our site, you can see that our jewelry is sometimes in silver, sometimes in vermeil, sometimes in bronze, or in bronze gilded with fine gold... and it is sometimes difficult for you to find you there...

So here is a short guide to the precious, semi-precious, or high-fancy jewelry that you can find with us...

MONEY

At Ombre Claire, a large part of our jewelry is made of silver . We have very pure silver and therefore very white and very soft... It bends but does not break! Silver when pure is malleable and white. Its purity makes it very clear and it oxidizes very little, moreover its name comes from the ancient Greek "shining white"!

THE BRONZE

Bronze was for a long time a generic name for all copper alloys. Today, when we speak of bronze, we associate it with an alloy of copper and tin. In literature we can also call it errain!

It is a very strong metal, resistant to wear, not easy to work.

At Ombre Claire we love the color of this metal, the way it oxidizes, and we like to associate it with silver.

THE GOLDEN BRONZE WITH FINE GOLD 

Gold-plated bronze is gold-plated bronze. Artisan jewelers cover the bronze with a thin layer of gold. This layer is generally 1 micron thick. The jewel therefore has the appearance of gold, but it is much less expensive! And for those who are allergic to bronze... no more worries with this thin layer of gold that is placed between the skin and the jewel.

Be careful, bronze gilded with fine gold is less expensive than gold but it is also less durable! The thin layer of gold can wear away over time, especially if all necessary precautions are not taken.

At Ombre Claire it is possible to iron over worn jewelry in gold... and here you are with a piece of jewelry like new!

THE VERMEIL

At Ombre Claire we have a lot of vermeil jewelry, but what is it? The vermeil technique is a bit the same as gold plating but the gold layer is placed on silver and it is much thicker. Vermeil jewelry is silver jewelry that has received a layer of 14 carat gold 5 microns thick, therefore much more resistant than plated, even if over time the gold of the vermeil jewelry will fade of course... The advantage of this technique is that it does not cause allergies since it is silver covered with gold, two hypoallergenic metals. Vermeil is also more expensive than gold plating because they are two precious metals, but it will last longer too!

L'OR 

At Ombre Claire we do not sell gold jewelry on the site or in store but we can make custom jewelry for you. We sometimes make gold wedding rings, for example.

Gold is a precious metal, which in its natural state is very soft and easily deformable. To make the metal more resistant, jewelers combine gold with other metals. The purer the metal, the higher the carat number. For example, 24 carat gold is 100% pure but it is rarely used because it is too soft. 18k gold is 75% pure, 14k gold is 58.5% pure, and 9k gold is 37.5% pure. The rest of the alloy is zinc, silver and copper.