38 Victoria Grove
Leeds
Yorkshire LS18 4ST
United Kingdom
Rings and various other types of jewellery including your watch that are worn regularly need to be cleaned periodically in order to remove the coating of dirt caused by make-up, body oils, etc which; dulls the beauty of the metal, mount, design, and stones.
Remember remove all rings before getting heavily involved in household chores and try and clean your rings on a regular basis.
Because gem stones by their nature are hard and usually brittle they can be subject to damage whilst carrying out task that you wouldn’t at first think would cause this problem such as playing some sports, gardening, building and repair work. Remember take off your rings and put them in a safe place before you start.
If you are getting ready to go out for the evening a good idea is to take off all jewellery including your watch and put on your chosen items when you have applied your make up and prepared your hair and nails.
A soft tooth brush used with a solution of soap and warm water is an ideal way to clean most personal jewellery.
However if you feel ‘time poor,’ and you have a number of pieces without stones fitted then invest in a small ultrasonic cleaner which can be bought for about £23.00. These devices are very simple to use, you just put a small amount of water with a drop of washing liquid in the container, pop in your items to be cleaned and press the button. Air dry, or if you wish use lint free towelling.
Remember, ultrasonic vibration and gemstones fitted in jewellery don’t really mix, they may vibrate the stones loose in their mounts.
The following items must not be soaked in any liquid medium: Amber, Ivory, Opals, Coral, Lapis Lazuli (All Cameos) all types of Pearls.
Occasionally oxidisation with the small amount of copper in the gold may cause discoloration. This can happen when using bleach whilst carrying out household task, this problem can only be rectified by a jeweller who will restore the piece back to pristine condition.
Under normal conditions gold will probably become dull. This is caused by normal use and is magnified by the thousands of fine scratches effecting the piece since first purchased, or since its last clean.
It’s handy if you buy from you local jeweller a proprietary impregnated cleaning cloth silver or gold. By rubbing the item with the cloth it will bring up the lustre, however if you can no longer create the finish using the cloth then its time to take it to the jeweller who will certainly bring the finish back to what it should be.
As you probably know silver easily tarnishes under the best of conditions and the easiest way to remove the tarnish is to purchase a bottle of silver dip.
Pour the dip into a ceramic bowl and using a brush wipe the piece with the silver dip until the tarnishing has been removed; now wash off the residual dip with clean water and dry off the cleaned piece.
If the item to be cleaned is small enough then dip the piece into the dip and allow to soak for a few minutes before rinsing off and drying.
You may wish to finally bring up the sheen of the cleaned item by rubbing down with the silver polishing cloth, finally buff with a dry cleaning cloth to produce the final finish.
Diamonds are not only the most popular stones used for the manufacture of jewellery but they are the hardest known material, because of the nature of the beast regarding their hardness people don’t realise how easy it is to chip them.
Diamonds can also be easily scratched, as can other gemstones. This usually occurs when jewellery with diamond fitted are stored together in the same container. Care must be taken when storing jewellery, each item containing diamonds should be stored separately.
For those who have opal products, care must be taken when maintaining the lustre of the stones.
Keep them separate from all liquids; however there is one exception, and that is distilled water. The correct way to look after these stones is to immerse them in the water for at least 24 hours once a month.