Jewelry care | Tips from Silvers

The mate­r­i­al from which jew­el­ry is made is sub­ject to wear, dark­en­ing, oxi­da­tion and scratch­ing. Read on and fol­low our jew­el­ry care tips to keep your jew­el­ry acces­sories look­ing shiny and beau­ti­ful for years to come.

How to care for jewelry

Jew­el­ery made from any alloy dete­ri­o­rates as a result of con­tact with chem­i­cals used in the house­hold. There­fore, it is rec­om­mend­ed to remove them before doing house­work, as well as before swim­ming in the bath­room, pool or on the beach. Espe­cial­ly avoid con­tact with water for prod­ucts with Swarovs­ki crys­tals, mar­c­a­site, zir­cons, wood, leather and tex­tile ele­ments (straps and cords).

Wet jew­el­ry can cause stones to fall out and damage/discoloration to items that can­not be repaired or restored.

Avoid direct con­tact of jew­el­ry and bijouterie with cos­met­ics. It is dan­ger­ous for min­er­als of nat­ur­al ori­gin, such as:

• amber,

• coral,

• pearl,

• emer­ald.

Chem­i­cals found in cos­met­ics — hair­spray, per­fume, lotions — can dis­col­or and remove shine from the sur­face of met­al and stone. Make­up should always be used before putting on jew­el­ry.

Dec­o­ra­tive stones — both nat­ur­al and syn­thet­ic — are brit­tle and prone to falling, crack­ing and chip­ping as a result of impact.

Jew­el­ry with stone and leather inlays should always be removed before going to bed, doing house­work, play­ing sports and oth­er activ­i­ties that can dam­age them.

In order for jew­el­ry to remain in its orig­i­nal form for as long as pos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly mat­te or coat­ed prod­ucts (gold-plat­ed, rhodi­um-plat­ed, pati­nat­ed), sit­u­a­tions that cause mechan­i­cal abra­sion of the sur­face should be avoid­ed.

Chains and jew­el­ry threads are very sen­si­tive to kinks, so they should always be removed before going to bed. They should not be bent or rolled too tight, as this may cause breaks. All thin and del­i­cate chains should be stored sep­a­rate­ly from oth­er jew­el­ry so that they do not get tan­gled or bro­ken.

Each piece of jew­el­ry should be placed in a string bag to pre­vent dam­age.

It is best if each item is in a box, in a sep­a­rate com­part­ment, cov­ered with a soft cloth that pro­tects jew­el­ry from scratch­es.

For clean­ing and pol­ish­ing jew­el­ry, we rec­om­mend using jew­el­ry wipes sat­u­rat­ed with a prod­uct that per­fect­ly removes plaque and pol­ish­es the sur­face. This is the most con­ve­nient, quick and easy way to care for jew­el­ry made from med­ical gold, jew­el­ry and cos­tume jew­el­ry met­al alloys. Also, jew­el­ry can be immersed for a few sec­onds in a warm soapy solu­tion. After that, they must be thor­ough­ly washed under run­ning water.

How to care for gold jewelry

The high­er the rate of non-pre­cious met­als in the alloy, the more they are prone to oxi­da­tion and dark­en­ing of the sur­face.

Prod­ucts made from low-carat gold sam­ples (333 and 375 — 8 and 9 carats) are most sus­cep­ti­ble to oxi­da­tion due to the low gold con­tent in the alloy. The oxi­da­tion process speeds up con­tact with chlo­rine, sul­fur con­tained in heal­ing water or warm springs, salt water and some med­i­cines. It hap­pens faster if the acces­sories are con­stant­ly exposed to light, mois­ture and air. This can be slowed down by stor­ing unused jew­el­ry in cas­es, box­es, or sealed con­tain­ers.

Jew­el­ry items made of leather and tex­tile mate­ri­als (straps and cords) are sub­ject to wear and tear, stretch­ing and dis­col­oration over time.

Items made of pre­cious met­als with open­work ele­ments require spe­cial care. They are deformed and destroyed as a result of pres­sure, pinch­ing or impact.

In this case, the care of such jew­el­ry should be car­ried out with the help of spe­cial tools that can be pur­chased at jew­el­ry stores. It is always nec­es­sary to read the instruc­tions, which indi­cate the types of prod­ucts and met­als for which clean­ing this prod­uct is intend­ed, and the cor­rect way to use it.

Par­tic­u­lar care should be tak­en when clean­ing rings, ear­rings and pen­dants with stones, leather, wood or tex­tile ele­ments and coat­ings (rhodi­um, gild­ing, elec­tro­plat­ing). Regard­ing the care of such jew­el­ry, it is best to seek advice from a jew­el­ry work­shop.

It is unde­sir­able to clean med­ical alloy jew­el­ry with tooth­paste or bak­ing soda, as it can remove the top coat and cause tar­nish­ing or per­ma­nent dis­coloura­tion of the sur­face.

Now you know how to prop­er­ly care for jew­el­ry, keep it in its orig­i­nal form and pro­long its wear­ing. Thanks to these rec­om­men­da­tions, you can afford to buy more inex­pen­sive acces­sories in the Sil­vers online store, which will always look like they were just pur­chased.