CRAFTD London Review: The Number They Explain But Do Not Print
Men's gold jewellery is almost entirely sold on photographs, which is awkward, because the thing that decides whether a chain still looks like that in two years is invisible in every photograph ever taken of it.
That thing is plating thickness. The most interesting discovery in this CRAFTD London review is not in the product pages at all. It is in the brand's own blog. There, the company explains the point better than most reviewers do, and then stops just short of answering it about itself.
What the brand's own blog says
The brand publishes an article on how long gold plated jewellery lasts. It sets out the category honestly.
Traditional gold plated jewellery, it says, lasts somewhere between a few months and two years before the gold starts to wear away.
Standard gold plating can be as little as 0.5 microns thick, often applied over almost any base metal.
Gold vermeil is at least 2.5 microns, and must sit over sterling silver.
Gold filled carries more gold by weight than standard plating, though the article gives no micron figure for it.
Brass is named as a cheap base metal that corrodes and reacts with skin. The article recommends stainless steel or sterling silver cores instead.
That is a useful explainer. The 0.5 to 2.5 micron spread it describes is a five-fold difference in the layer of gold you are buying. The article then describes CRAFTD's own jewellery as real 18K gold over a solid 316L stainless steel core, with a protective scratch and fade-resistant coating, waterproof, sweatproof and backed by a lifetime guarantee.
Every part of that is specific except the one part the article itself has just spent several paragraphs establishing as decisive. The gold plating thickness of CRAFTD's own pieces is not stated, in microns or in any other unit, on the blog article or on the product pages we read. A brand that tells you microns are what separates a few months from a couple of years, and names 0.5 and 2.5 as the reference points, has effectively asked you the question it then declines to answer. The base metal is the good news here. A 316L stainless steel core is the better of the two options the brand itself recommends, and it is a long way from the brass it warns against.
Where the claims disagree with each other
One smaller inconsistency is worth flagging. It affects how you treat the chain in the shower.
The chains collection page we read listed waterproof as a feature of the category, alongside the real 18k gold description and a lifetime guarantee on all items. But on the individual product page for a 2mm rose gold Cuban chain, no waterproof claim was made at all. The page described the links as finished with scratch and fade-resistant protection, and the clasp as snap-proof. That was the extent of it.
So the collection page badges a property the product page does not repeat. The blog article does claim waterproof and sweatproof for the brand's pieces generally. Where two of a brand's own pages disagree, the quieter one is usually the more careful one. Treat the chain as water-resistant rather than something to swim in, until the brand says otherwise in writing.
The lifetime guarantee, and what is not in it
Lifetime Guarantee on ALL items appears on both the collection and product pages we read. That is a strong headline. It is also the brand's biggest selling point against a high-street jeweller.
What did not appear on either page is a single term of it. No covered conditions. No exclusions, no claims process, and no mention of whether tarnishing, fading or plating wear sit inside or outside the cover. The returns window was not stated on the product page either.
This matters more here than it would elsewhere, because of the micron gap above. Fading is the specific failure mode of plated jewellery, and it is the one the brand's own blog says arrives between a few months and two years on ordinary plating. A lifetime guarantee that covers fading would make the undisclosed thickness almost irrelevant. A lifetime guarantee that excludes it, as most jewellery guarantees exclude normal wear, would leave the thickness as the only thing standing between you and a worn chain. On the published pages we could not tell which of those two guarantees this is, and that single question is worth asking before you order.
The review record, counted
The brand's public Trustpilot profile gave us a far larger data set than most brands we look at.
Rating | Share | Approx. count | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
5 star | 75% | 5,891 | Dominant block |
4 star | 6% | 471 | |
3 star | 2% | 157 | Thinnest band |
2 star | 2% | 157 | |
1 star | 15% | 1,178 | 7.5x the three-star count |
TrustScore 4.2 from 7,854 reviews. A plain weighted average of those percentages comes to 4.24, so the displayed figure and the raw arithmetic agree almost exactly, which tells you recent reviews are tracking the historical mix rather than diverging from it. That is a better sign than the headline score alone. The shape is still polarised, with 81% at four or five stars, 17% at one or two, and only 2% in the middle. About 1,178 one-star reviews against roughly 157 three-star ones is a ratio of 7.5 to 1, so when this brand disappoints somebody, it disappoints them completely rather than mildly.
On replies, the profile states 96% of negative reviews receive a response, typically within one week. Ninety-six per cent is a high rate and worth crediting. One week is 168 hours. That is seven times the 24-hour response we have measured on the best-performing accessory brands we have reviewed, so the willingness is clearly there and the speed is mid-table.
Price, and what it buys
The 2mm rose gold Cuban chain we read listed at 41.99 pounds. The chains category showed 79 products. Filters indicated 18k gold on 17 items, 18ct gold on three, and silver as a colour across 57.
Forty-two pounds for a plated chain over a 316L stainless core is reasonable money. Well above a fashion-market chain, well below solid gold. That middle position is exactly where plating thickness decides whether the purchase was good value, which brings the whole review back to the same unanswered number.
Before you buy
Ask customer service, in writing, for the gold plating thickness in microns on the specific piece you want. The brand's own blog proves it knows why you are asking.
Ask whether the lifetime guarantee covers fading and plating wear, or excludes them as normal wear. Get the answer by email rather than from a badge.
Ask whether your specific chain is waterproof, given that the collection page and the product page we read did not agree on it.
Confirm the returns window and the length options for your chain, neither of which appeared on the product page we read.
The verdict
There is a lot to like. A 316L stainless steel core is the right engineering choice, and the brand argues for it convincingly in its own words. Nearly six thousand five-star reviews is a real base of satisfied buyers. The displayed score matches the plain arithmetic, and a 96% reply rate to complaints shows a company that turns up when things go wrong.
The close of this CRAFTD London review is one sentence long. A brand that publishes an article explaining that microns decide how long gold plating lasts, and then publishes no micron figure for its own gold plating, has left the most important specification in the purchase up to you to request, and until it is in writing the lifetime guarantee is a headline rather than a term.
