Your jewellery can look dull and worn out if you seldom clean them regularly. So how do you go about cleaning your jewellery quickly, easily and safely? Jewellery needs some care and attention to be kept at its sparkling best. If you’re not sure where to start, these top tips will help you learn about how best to easily clean and care for your gold, sterling silver and gemstone jewellery:
1. Check your jewellery
It can be easy to not realise that your jewellery needs a clean, either because you wear it all the time and don’t notice the changes or because it’s put away somewhere and you don’t look at it too often.
2. Give it a wash
This is the simplest cleaning step to do, but pretty much all jewellery should benefit from it. You might find it’s all you need to do for many pieces. Wash your jewellery with warm water using a gentle liquid soap. Castile soap, soap for woollens or even hand soap with no moisturiser or harsh chemicals should work well.
3. Use polish cloth to remove tarnish
Sterling silver in particular will tarnish over time, but other precious metals can as well, including lower carats of gold. This is a normal process with metal and the tarnish is easy enough to clean off precious metals.
4. Avoid harsh cleaning
Never use ‘old wives’ jewellery cleaning methods involving toothpaste or baking soda which is rubbed onto the metal. This will remove tiny amounts of metal every time you do it and over time it will damage and deplete your precious jewellery.
5. Cleaning silk thread necklaces
If your necklace has silk thread, it can also be washed in warm soapy water, followed by a rinse. Lay the piece flat or hang it up to dry the silk should straight. Otherwise use an iron on the silk setting to straighten it out.
6. Store your jewellery carefully
Now your jewellery is nice and clean, have a think about how best to store it to avoid needing to clean it again too soon. Avoid storing precious metal jewellery in particular in a humid place – especially the bathroom. Humidity will speed up tarnishing a lot, so it’s best avoided. If you live in a humid place, then extra care should be taken and more cleaning undertaken.