Caring for your Jewellery

General wear
Your pieces will of course pick up signs of wear in time, though a quick polish will remove tarnish and make them sparkle again. Keep them safe in a box or pouch when not wearing. If you’d like a re-polish for a special occasion or spring clean, get in touch to discuss.

Otherwise, just give a regular, light clean with a silver jewellery cloth and stones a wipe with a damp cloth.

Closed back settings
(if you can’t see the back of the stone through the setting)

Never let rings or other pieces with closed back settings get properly wet. While the stones are set tightly, they aren’t water tight. This isn’t so much of a problem for opaque stones, but will cause issues for clear stones. The same goes for using Silver dip cleaners or baking soda and tin-foil.
Remember to treat your gems like (beautiful) gremlins and they’ll be alright!

Other tarnishing factors
Speaking of water, chlorinated or salt water and Sterling Silver do not mix. So whether or not your piece has stones, take silver off when swimming or it will tarnish. It can be cleaned up, but it’s a pain, and can be alarming to see a piece turn black overnight.

It’s also worth knowing that the chemical makeup of some people’s skin can cause silver to tarnish more quickly than normal, or for tarnish to rub off on your skin. If you find this happening to you, please get in touch.

Cleaning with ltruasonic machines
If you have access to an ultrasonic, it can be tempting to throw everything in and see it come out magically clean. By all means use it to clean up plain Silver or Gold pieces and hard precious stones (Diamonds, Rubies, Sapphires etc), but never use for organic materials such as Amber, Pearl or Jet. One session will dull the surface and while Amber and Jet could be re-ground, Pearls will be irreversibly ruined.

Likewise, don’t use it on softer stones like Lapis, Opal or Turquoise and or any stones with inclusions. The tiny bubbles quickly dull shiny surfaces, and worse will get into cracks and inclusions and cause the stone to weaken or break.

If in doubt - don’t!

Stick to your soft cloth and you’ll be reyt! :)