Cleaning Jewellery
Can you damage your precious jewellery when cleaning?
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Note: If in doubt about cleaning your jewellery consult the opinion of an expert jeweller.
Wearing jewellery on a day to day basis can lead to a build up of oily debris mainly composed of dead skin, dust and grit. It doesn’t help if you also wear your precious rings whilst washing up as this also leads to a greasy film coating on the backs of stones and inside settings. So the main objective when getting your jewellery cleaned, is to remove all this greasy debris.
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Here are some hints and tips on how to clean different types of jewellery:
Gold Jewellery: Most gold jewellery can be cleaned in warm soapy water, and can be gently brushed if necessary using an old tooth brush.
Gold Alloys: High carat alloys such as 18 carat and above, will not usually become tarnished, and will not be harmed by household chemicals. However, lower carat gold can be harmed by contact with chlorine based bleach and cleaning chemicals. Chlorine can cause stress corrosion cracking in lower gold alloys of 14 carat and below, although it will be worse if the jewellery contains porosity through less than perfect manufacturing treatments. Because of this it is best to avoid cleaning your jewellery with bleach or other cleaners containing chlorine, and also to avoid wearing it when in contact with bleach.
Diamonds: Unless you rub two of your diamonds together, it is going to be pretty difficult to scratch or damage them. Therefore, as with gold jewellery the good old toothbrush and warm soapy water will do. One word of warning is that if you are using a cloth, sometimes the synthetic thread may bend the claws that hold the stones and can loosen them.
Silver: Silver tarnishes easily so solutions such as Goddard’s Silver Dip can be used and the tarnish will come off easily
Platinum: Clean platinum as for high carat golds as Platinum is highly resistant to tarnishing.
It is always advisable to pop down to your local jeweller and seek professional advice if you are not sure whether your cleaning method will cause damage to your jewellery
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