August 18th, 2010 by admin

Many people in the world wear jewelry and care for it, sometimes not properly, but nonetheless they do care about their jewelry and how it looks. A great amount of these people make mistakes when cleaning their jewelry as well, usually by using methods that ultimately damage the jewelry as a whole rather than cleanse it.

The proper way to clean your jewelry is actually quite simple, use regular soap and water, and thoroughly cleanse the jewelry. However, you do not have to clean it like this all of the time, all you must do is wipe off any excess oils or filth on your jewelry with a soft cloth every time you remove your jewelry. Even though this will maintain your jewelry very well, you should also thoroughly clean your jewelry every once in a while in addition to wiping it off.

The tarnishing of jewelry is irritating, sterling silver actually goes through this process routinely and must be maintained properly if you wish to prevent it. All you must do is keep the piece in a Ziploc bag wrapped in the proper tissue paper that jeweler’s use. The fact that this is a soft metal is unfortunate, because one simple rough touch to the surface of the sterling silver could damage it.

Besides sterling silver, other types of jewelry can be cleaned accordingly:

Method #1- Remove fingerprints and dirt by soaking the piece of jewelry in a half cup of water mixed with soap and let it remain in there for two-three minutes. After this, simply rinse it thoroughly with pure water and dry your jewelry completely, then you should place it within a plastic bag for safe keeping.

Method #2- Tarnished jewelry should be polished with a 100% cotton cloth as well as a reliable nonabrasive metal cleaner. Once you have done this, all you must do is rinse the jewelry with pure water to get rid of any remaining cleaner stuck between clasps, gems, or anywhere on your jewelry.

Those are the two primary methods of cleaning jewelry, but you should also know that you should NEVER in any case use ammonia or toothpaste to clean jewelry. The ammonia will always eat away certain metals such as gold and silver, and the toothpaste damages all surfaces of metal. If any of these products are used to clean jewelry, you will have to take it to a professional jeweler and even then it is unlikely that your jewelry will return to its former state
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