Is SKRT Real Gold? Materials, Plating, and Quality Tiers Explained

The short answer: SKRT pieces are 18K gold plated over a high-density base metal, set with hand-placed lab-grown stones and cubic zirconia. We don't sell solid 18K cuban link chains for $200 because nobody can. Here's exactly what you're getting and why we built it this way.

What "real gold" actually means

The phrase "real gold" gets thrown around like everyone agrees on the definition. They don't.

There are three honest answers a jeweler can give:

Solid gold, the entire piece is gold alloy. A 14K solid cuban link chain at 12mm width and 22 inches will run you $4,000 to $7,000 retail.
Gold-filled, a thick layer of solid gold (5% of the total weight, by US FTC standard) bonded to a base. Lasts a decade-plus with normal wear. Usually 3 to 5 times the price of plated.
Gold-plated, a layer of gold (measured in microns) electroplated over a base metal. The thickness ranges from "flash plating" (0.175 microns) on cheap costume jewelry, all the way to heavy plating (2.5+ microns) that holds up for years.

SKRT pieces are option 3, with the plating done at the heavy end of the range.

What we use, exactly

Our standard construction:

Base: brass and stainless steel cores depending on the piece. Brass for chains and pendants where weight and feel matter. Stainless steel for pieces that need extra structural rigidity.
Plating: 18K gold (75% gold content) electroplated to a thickness designed to survive daily wear. We test our pieces to a minimum of 18 months of normal use before any visible wear, in normal conditions.
Stones: a mix of lab-grown diamonds, moissanite, and high-grade cubic zirconia depending on the piece and price tier. We say which stones are in which pieces in the product description, every time.
Setting: hand-set prongs on iced-out pieces. We don't use the cheaper "channel-poured" approach you see on bargain-bin chains, because those stones fall out.

If you want the absolute fine print on a specific SKU, the construction is on every product page.

Why we chose plating over solid

Two reasons, both honest.

Solid gold pricing puts iced-out hip-hop jewelry out of reach for most of our customers. A 12mm iced-out cuban in solid 14K gold would sell for $4,500 minimum at a fair markup. That's not a wearable piece for most people, that's a statement-of-arrival purchase. We decided early that SKRT should make the iced-out look reachable for the kid putting away $40 a paycheck, not just the artist already on the cover of XXL.

Plating, done right, lasts. The hate plating gets is mostly justified by the cheap stuff that flakes after a month. But 18K plating at proper thickness over a quality base, handled correctly (don't shower in chlorine, don't sleep in it, don't wear it to the gym 5 days a week), will hold up for years. We've had v1 customers from 2019 message us with chains that still look new in 2025.

What we don't do

To set expectations clearly:

We don't claim natural diamonds. Iced-out hip-hop pieces with hundreds of stones at our price points are never natural diamonds, and any brand claiming otherwise is lying. We use lab-grown or CZ depending on tier, and we say which.
We don't pretend it's solid. "18K gold" on a tag in our store always means 18K gold plating. If we ever sell a solid piece, the listing will explicitly say "solid 14K" or "solid 18K" with a price reflecting it.
We don't oversell durability. Plating eventually wears at high-friction points (the inside of bracelets that touch your wrist, the back of pendants). That's physics, not a defect. We replate any SKRT piece for cost-of-materials in our care program.

How SKRT compares to a mall jeweler at the same price

Walk into a mall and spend $300 on a chain. You'll get one of three things:

A thin, hollow gold-filled piece that looks underwhelming at hip-hop scale.
A "925 silver with rhodium" piece that tarnishes once you sweat in it.
A plated cuban with stones glued in, where the first stone falls out within the year.

For the same $300 at SKRT, you get a 6mm cuban link bracelet, hand-set stones in prong settings, 18K plated brass core, weighing about 35 grams. It's the piece in our shopping cart for a reason.

The lifetime guarantee

Every SKRT piece comes with our lifetime structural guarantee. If a clasp breaks, a link snaps, or a stone falls out due to a defect, we repair or replace at no charge. The guarantee covers manufacturing defects, not fair wear and tear (chlorine damage, drops, intentional misuse). Full terms are on our Lifetime Guarantee page.

Bottom line

SKRT is real jewelry, made honestly, at a price built around what our customers actually spend. We're not pretending to compete with Avianne at their custom-piece tier and we're not pretending to be a $20 Amazon import either. We're the brand that makes the iced-out look reachable, with construction we'll defend in writing.

If you want to see what this looks like in practice, our most-loved cuban links and tennis collection are the best places to start. Both have customer reviews going back to 2019, including from buyers who still wear their first SKRT piece.

Internal links to add when publishing:

/pages/lifetime-guarantee
/pages/care-instructions
/collections/cuban-link-chains
/collections/tennis-chains
/pages/about-skrt

Photo recommendations:

Hero: lifestyle shot of someone wearing a 12mm cuban (pull from 06-CREATIVE/_archive-v1-skrt-stuff/Extra shoots to go through/)
Mid-post: close-up of plating thickness (need new shot)
Closing: SKRT v1 customer's chain after years of wear (need to source from reviews)