Care and Cleaning

Jewelry goes on last and comes off first. On last, after lotion, perfume, hairspray and sunscreen have dried. Off first, before you wash, swim, sleep, exercise, garden or clean.

• Chlorine and bromine. Pool and hot tub water attacks the alloy metals mixed into gold and can leave the solder at a joint brittle. One afternoon in a hot tub can do damage that years of ordinary wear would not.
• Bleach and household cleaners. Same chemistry, faster. Take rings off before you clean, not while you are wearing gloves.
• Hand sanitizer. Mostly alcohol, plus denaturants. It dulls a coated finish quickly and gets into settings where it dries as a film.
• Salt water and sand. Salt corrodes, sand abrades, and cold water shrinks fingers enough to lose a ring in the surf.
• Sleep. A chain worn overnight kinks and eventually snaps. Earrings worn overnight bend their posts and are the usual cause of a torn lobe.

Gold itself does not tarnish. The other metals alloyed with it can, which is why a 10k piece will discolor sooner than an 18k one: there is less gold in it and more of everything else.

The trade-off runs the other way for hardness. The higher the karat, the softer the metal, so an 18k band picks up scratches and loses its edges faster than a 14k one. Both are normal wear, not damage.

• To clean. Warm water, a few drops of plain dish soap, a soft toothbrush worked behind and around the setting where skin oil collects. Rinse, then dry with a lint-free cloth.
• Avoid. Chlorine, bleach, toothpaste, baking soda and any paste sold as a polish. Abrasives take metal off; that is how they work.
• White gold is usually finished with a thin rhodium plating. Rhodium wears away and the warmer color of the gold underneath begins to show, first on the underside of a ring. That is the finish wearing, not a fault, and a jeweler can replate it.

Tarnish on silver is not dirt. It is a chemical reaction between the silver and sulfur compounds in ordinary air, and the black film it leaves is silver sulfide. It is expected, it is reversible, and it happens fastest to silver that is never worn.

• To clean. A silver polishing cloth, the kind impregnated with polish. Work along the length of a piece in straight strokes rather than scrubbing in circles.
• Do not use a dip on anything with a deliberately darkened or antiqued finish. Dips strip the darkening out of the recesses along with the tarnish, and the contrast the piece was designed around does not come back.
• Do not use toothpaste or baking soda. Both are abrasive enough to leave a haze of fine scratches that no polishing will remove.
• Storage matters more than cleaning. A sealed bag with the air pressed out, ideally with an anti-tarnish strip, and never the bathroom.
• Things that accelerate tarnish: rubber bands, wool, some cardboard and paperboard, eggs, onions, chlorinated water, and humid air.

These three words describe three different things, and the difference is thickness.

• Gold plated is a thin layer of gold deposited electrically over a base metal.
• Vermeil is gold over sterling silver, and United States rules set a minimum thickness before the word may be used.
• Gold-filled is a far thicker layer bonded mechanically to the base. It outlasts plating by a wide margin, but it is still a layer.

In every case the gold is finite. It wears from friction, sweat and chemistry, and it goes first at the points that rub: the underside of a ring, the back of a clasp, a raised edge. That is the finish behaving normally, and it is why the product page states plainly when a piece is coated.

• Never use a silver polishing cloth, a polishing paste, an ultrasonic cleaner, a steamer or a dip on a coated piece. Each of those removes the coating you are trying to protect.
• To clean. A soft, dry cloth after wearing. If it needs more, a barely damp cloth with one drop of soap, wiped, then dried immediately.
• The two worst offenders are perfume and hand sanitizer. Put a coated piece on last and let everything else dry first.
• Store it apart from harder pieces so nothing scrapes across it in a drawer.

Treat the softest or most delicate material in a piece as the limit for the whole piece. A gold cross with one pearl is a pearl piece, not a gold one.

• Diamond, sapphire, ruby. Hard, and still chippable. Hardness resists scratching; it does not resist a knock on a door frame. Soap and warm water are fine.
• Emerald. Almost always filled with oil or resin to soften the look of internal fissures. Never use an ultrasonic cleaner, steam, hot water or a detergent soak, all of which draw the filler out. Wipe only.
• Opal and turquoise. Porous. They absorb water, oils and dyes, and heat or sudden dryness can craze an opal. No soaking, no ultrasonic.
• Pearl. Nacre is soft and dissolves in acid, so perfume, hairspray, vinegar and lemon all attack it. Last on, first off. Wipe with a soft damp cloth after wearing. Never soak a strung strand: the silk stretches when wet and rots over time.
• Amber, coral and jet. Organic, soft and sensitive to solvents. Dry cloth only.
• Glued settings. Small accent stones are often cemented rather than gripped. Soaking softens some adhesives, so do not soak a piece unless you know its stones are held mechanically.

If you cannot identify a stone with certainty, a dry soft cloth is always safe and nothing else is.

Chains almost never break in the middle. They fail at the two or three links either side of the clasp, because that is where the load and the wear concentrate.

• Once a month, hold the clasp and check it springs shut crisply. A lobster or spring ring that closes lazily is about to fail.
• Look at the jump ring joining the clasp to the chain. If it has worn thin or opened even slightly, it is a cheap fix now and a lost pendant later.
• Check the bail of a pendant where it rides on the chain. A heavy pendant on a fine chain saws through it over years.
• Fasten the clasp before you put a chain away, then hang it or lay it flat. A chain left in a heap knots itself, and a knot pulled tight is what breaks a link.
• Fine box, snake and herringbone chains kink permanently. A kink cannot be pressed out; the metal is already creased.
• To free a knot, lay the chain flat, put a drop of oil on it and work it open with two pins, gently. If it does not give, take it to a jeweler rather than pulling.

This is the method for solid gold or silver set with hard stones. It is not the method for coated pieces, pearls, opals, turquoise, emeralds or glued settings, all of which are covered above.

1. Work over a bowl, never over an open drain, and put the plug in anyway.
2. Fill the bowl with warm water. Warm, not hot: heat is what damages fillers and loosens some adhesives.
3. Add a few drops of plain dish soap. Nothing with bleach, degreaser, citrus or added abrasive.
4. Soak for five to ten minutes.
5. Brush gently with a soft toothbrush kept only for this. Most of the dullness is skin oil sitting underneath the stone, so work from behind the setting.
6. Rinse in a second bowl of clean water rather than under a running tap.
7. Pat dry with a lint-free cloth, then leave the piece out for an hour before storing it. Water trapped in a setting is why the film comes straight back.

Do not use toothpaste, baking soda, ammonia, bleach, boiling water or an ultrasonic cleaner on anything you cannot positively identify.

• Separately. Gold scratches gold, and a diamond scratches everything else in the box. Individual pouches or a lined box with dividers.
• Dry and dark. Not the bathroom. Steam and humidity accelerate tarnish and creep into settings.
• Silver sealed. A closed bag with the air pressed out, plus an anti-tarnish strip if you have one.
• Clasps fastened, chains flat or hanging. That single habit prevents most tangles.
• Never damp. If a piece has been in water, dry it fully before it goes away.
• Travelling. One pouch per piece. A weekly pill organizer holds studs and small pendants better than any travel case.

Some things are a five minute bench job if they are caught early and a lost stone if they are not. Stop wearing a piece and have it looked at when you find any of these.

• A stone that rattles or shifts when you tap the piece lightly next to your ear.
• A prong that snags on knitwear. A prong catches because it has lifted or worn thin.
• A ring shank that has gone visibly thinner at the bottom.
• A clasp that no longer springs fully shut, or a jump ring with a visible gap.
• A chain that has stretched, kinked or gone wavy.

Do not press a loose stone back down, bend a prong with pliers, or resize a ring yourself. Each of those turns a small repair into a large one.

One practical warning before you book work: a piece that has been altered, resized or repaired by someone else usually falls outside a shop's return terms, ours included. If the piece is recent, read the return terms first and talk to us before you have work done.