Now you have a bit of time on your hands it’s time to get the jewellery box out and have a sort through, untangle that mess of chains and spruce up your gems.
With a little care, you can actually do a good job of cleaning jewellery at home using common household materials. You don’t need to get any special supplies just make your own homemade jewellery cleaning solution with a mixture of mild soap and warm water.
Organise your jewellery.
Start by sorting your silver jewellery, semi-precious stone jewellery and precious stone jewellery out and check for loose stones by gently tapping them, if you find any movement keep these by to take to a specialist for repair. Next tackle the tangle, if you have necklace chains in a knot it’s not as hard as you might think, just pop them on a soft surface and gently use your finger to roll them and they should start to loosen, don’t be tempted to pull at a knot, once you get them loose, with a something fine like a pin, start to tease out the strands until you have enough to work with and unravel the rest. It just takes a little patience.
What Jewellery is safe to clean?
Separate the different types of jewellery, as not all pieces are safe to clean, if it’s plated do not clean as you will remove a layer of the plating, some stone jewellery like Opals are porous and can shrink, so again leave these for a specialist. When it comes to costume jewellery like faux pearls it’s best to test a small area at the back of the necklace to ensure you don’t damage the surface.
What’s good for jewellery cleaning?
Now that your jewellery is organised it’s time to clean the Jewellery, the best for cleaning jewellery at home is mild soapy water and a soft toothbrush. First soak your silver and gold jewellery in the soapy solution to loosen the build-up of dirt, no longer than 10 minutes for this, then very gently get into the nooks and crannies with the brush, use a cotton bud to clean behind the stone settings where dirt builds up, gently pat dry and leave somewhere warm to evaporate any remaining moisture.
Why does Jewellery get dirty?
Jewellery starts to look dull from normal wear, moisture from your skin and the humidity in your home will tarnish silver, it’s allied oxidation and in extreme levels of moisture it can blacken the silver, but it can be cleaned in the silver dip to revive it.
A build-up of dead skin cells and perfumes also ad to the problem, so regularly washing your pieces to remove the residue on the jewellery. Avoid spraying perfumes directly onto jewellery by putting it on after your perfume, the aim is to keep your jewellery clean to avoid any damage.
Why is it important to clean jewellery?
Cleaning and general maintenance of jewellery will ensure your jewellery stays in the best possible condition for the long-term. With time, general wear and tear plus natural environmental damage can cause any jewellery to lose its shine.
How often should you clean Jewellery?
It really depends on how often you wear the pieces, for items you wear everyday clean once a week, less worn accessories can be cleaned monthly. Make sure you know which pieces are suitable for cleaning, get to know your jewellery and gemstones so you can care for these precious pieces.
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