Are "pure" gold or silver jewelry really as good as they sound?

I occasionally see commercials of jewelry made of "pure gold" or "pure silver" as if it were a good thing.
I have to admit that jewels made of "pure" metals really do sound more prestigious.
But what sounds good isn't always really good in reality.
In reality pure gold and silver are not at all suitable for making jewelry.
When the metals are in a pure state ( = 100% ), and not mixed with other metals, they are very very soft.

This means that they bend and get scratched very easily.

So if you make a ring of pure gold the ring will get scratched and deformed from every blow it gets and in the end it will completely deform.
And so are earrings, bracelets or pendants.

What makes silver or gold durable and suitable for making jewelry is mixing them with other metals.

Silver jewelry is usually made of sterling silver.
It is a mixture that is 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals like copper.

Gold has different options-

There is 24K gold which is pure gold, which jewelry is usualy not made of, because of the reasons I stated before.

18k gold is customary to make luxury jewelry and it's a mixture of 75% pure gold, and 25% of other metals. This gold is still a bit soft (but not too much) and has a nice dark yellow hue.
The stamp on jewelry made of such gold is 18K or 750 (derived from the 75% pure gold it contains).

There is also 14K gold, which most gold jewelry in the market are made. This alloy has 58.5% pure gold and 42.5% of other metals.
It has a lighter yellow color and harder than 18K gold.
The stamp of such gold is 14K or 585 ( which stands for the 58.5% pure gold it contains).

There are also cheaper jewelry that are made of 9K gold which has 37.5% pure gold and 62.5% other metals.

So keep this in mind when you see a commercial about "pure" silver or gold jewelry because not all "pure" is good.