Cleaning Jewellery - Is It Safe To Clean Up Your Precious Jewellery?
Note: If uncertain about cleaning your jewellery seek advice from a specialist brighton jeweller.
When jewellery is put on, it becomes coated in an oily film that is primarily composed of dead skin cells, dust and grit. An oily film will even begin to coat the backs of gemstones and inside settings if you put on jewellery when washing up, therefore the main objective of cleaning jewellery is to take out all this greasy particles.
Below are a few ideas and tips about how to clean different types of jewellery:
Gold Jewellery: You can use an old toothbrush with some warm water and soap to completely clean your gold jewellery.
Gold Alloys: High carat alloys like 18 carat and above, will not usually become faded, and will not be harmed by household chemical compounds. However, lower carat gold can be harmed by contact with chlorine based bleach and cleaning chemical compounds. Chlorine may cause stress corrosion cracking in lower gold alloys of 14 carat and below, although it will be even worse if the jewellery consists of porosity through less than perfect manufacturing treatment options. Due to this it is best to avoid cleaning your jewellery with bleach or other cleaners that contains chlorine, and also to avoid putting it on while in contact with chlorine bleach.
Diamonds: Unless you rub two of your diamonds together, it is going to be quite difficult to scratch or harm them. Hence, just like gold jewellery the good old toothbrush and warm water and soap will work. One word of warning is that if you use a cloth, at times the synthetic thread may bend the claws that hold the gemstones and may loosen them.
Silver: While cleaning silver jewellery, Silver tarnishes easily therefore solutions like Goddard's Silver Dip may be used and the tarnish will come off effortlessly.
Platinum: Platinum is highly resistant to tarnishing like high carat gold alloys and thus could be cleaned by using chemical substances.
It is always recommended to pop down to your local jewellers in brighton and seek professional advice should you be not sure whether your cleaning method will damage your jewellery.