White Gold

White gold is created from yellow gold by alloying it with copper, nickel, zinc and occasionally silver. White gold is a lot less expensive than platinum because of it's high content of alloys that are cheaper than gold. And since gold is more affordable than platinum, the white gold setting ends up being a lot less expensive than the equivalent platinum setting. White gold is a more secure setting than yellow gold because the alloys that provide its whitish hue are stronger than those alloys that give yellow gold its strength and color. However, white gold in its natural state looks slightly yellow. To give white gold its platinum-like sheen, it is often plated with rhodium (a white reflective metal of the platinum family). The only disadvantage of white gold is that this plating wears off and may need to be redone later at a nominal fee.