Cleaning and care of jewellery
Jewellery care instructions
Jewellery that is worn often, will not always look like new. But jewellery can stay lovely for a long time if it is handled and cared for properly. The more often you care for your jewellery, the longer you will be able to enjoy it. And your jewellery will reward you with a longer life.
How to wear your jewellery properly:
| * | Don't wear any jewellery when you are gardening or doing housework; protect your jewellery from becoming damp. Wash water and/or sweat damage the surface in the long term. |
| * | This is also true of blows and strong sunlight. This causes irreparable damage to your jewellery. |
| * | Chlorine and salt water can cause gold and silver jewellery to lose its colour. |
| * | Protect your jewellery from cosmetics and chemicals e.g. when dying your hair. |
| * | Taking certain medicines can cause silver jewellery to tarnish. |
You should clean your jewellery as often as possible. Generally speaking, you can clean any metal jewellery, without stones, with mild soapy water. However, you can not clean tarnished pieces of jewellery in this way. Use gold and silver cleaning cloths for this. These are impregnated with special cleaning and polishing substances and guarantee gentle cleaning.
Tarnished silver jewellery
Silver jewellery oxidises through being worn and in contact with the air. It becomes an unattractive, tarnished grey to black.
This is caused by hydrogen sulphide, which is present in the air. The silver reacts with it and forms silver sulphide.
Polished surfaces can be cleaned with a customary silver dip or with a cleaning cloth or cleaning paste and regain their high gloss finish.
These cleaners remove the dark sulphide layer on the silver and often contain an additional substance to protect effectively against tarnishing.
However, these mixtures are usually toxic. Therefore, you should always wear protective gloves when using them. Many stones are sensitive to these mixtures too.
It is therefore recommended to avoid having the stones come in contact with these cleaners!