Jewellery Care

 

 

To help you keep your jewellery in a sparkly condition, here are a few tips on how to care for them………

 

Jewellery is delicate by its nature, so we advise taking off your jewellery before lifting any heavy items, partaking in sports, gardening, or working machinery and such like.

Items such as rings, we advise removing if it may be in contact with something abrasive or another metal object on a regular basis. This could be a handle bar or another ring worn on the same hand for instance. Constant wear against a hard object will cause damage to the ring and may compromise any intricate design.

 

All metals can tarnish if in contact with harmful chemicals and even some perfumes, moisturisers and essential oils. 

 

Silver

Silver becomes black because of hydrogen sulfide (sulfur), a substance that occurs in the air. When silver comes into contact with it, a chemical reaction takes place and a black layer is formed. Silver oxidizes faster in places with a lot of light and high humidity.

Also contact with products like cosmetics, hair spray, perfume, deodorant, body lotion, bleach, etc., can speed up the oxidizing process.

Besides that, the natural oils that your skin produces can also react to your silver jewelry. The extent to which the silver reacts with these substances from your skin is highly dependent on the type of food you eat, alcohol consumption and whether you are taking medication. These things influence the acidity of your skin, which can cause a reaction. Also sweat (which ammonia occurs in) raises the acidity of the skin and could tarnish the silver.

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Some steps you can take to remedy the situation

• Do not store your silver jewelry in damp places such as the bathroom or the kitchen.

• Put on your silver jewelry after you have used make-up, perfume, hair spray and other beauty products.

• Take off your silver jewelry when you go swimming, cleaning (cleaning products are very bad), hand washing or contact with sea water (salt water).

• Take off your silver jewelry if you transpire a lot. For example, in case of fever or intensive exercise.

• Keep your silver jewelry in a closed bag that is protected from air and store it in a dark space

• B Jewellery can clean your item if you wish just pop it into one of our stores.

 

Gold

Gold tarnishes very slowly, if left unworn in a jewellery box for a very long time, it may turn slightly dull. As with silver, a quick polish with a cloth should be enough to make it shiny again.

 

Platinum & Palladium

Both these metals are very resilient to tarnish.

 

All metals including Platinum will begin to show signs of wear over many years. 18ct gold is the softest precious metal, followed by 9ct gold, then Palladium and finally Platinum. A wedding ring worn every day and rarely removed will develop a very soft patina, just like your Grandmother's jewellery, it shows its story through the life of its owner. Details in carving and engraving will soften over time and become less defined with age...just like us!

 

Stones

Diamonds can pick up scratches if not handled with care. Diamonds can scratch each other if jumbled up together in a jewellery box. 

Opaque diamonds are softer than white diamond. 

Black diamonds are a bit more brittle than Opaque diamonds so a little care should be taken to remove them before undertaking any heavy work or sports.

 

Pearls

Our Freshwater pearls are natural cultured pearls. They are made up of many thin layers of calcium created by the oyster. Because of this, they are very delicate and will not withstand constant wear and washing on your hands (if set in a ring). They like moisture and the oils from your skin but they don't like soaps and detergents which will dry them out, so pearls shouldn't be worn when bathing or swimming. They don't like perfumes either! Pearls are fixed to their setting with special cement; this can also deteriorate with constant contact with soaps and detergents which may cause the pearl to drop out.

 

Chains

Some of our chains are very thin, and they will tangle easily when removed. We suggest having a small piece of cardboard ready to wrap your necklace around when you remove it. 

 

Cleaning Diamonds

During daily wear, soap, moisturisers and oils from your skin will cause your ring or ear studs to become dull and mat. It is very simple to revive them back to their former glory with a gentle rub with a soft toothbrush and some mild liquid detergent such as hand wash or washing up liquid. The toothbrush will get into all those little crevasses such as behind the diamond, or in the ear stud back. Rinse it well and leave to dry on some absorbent cloth or tissue...tah dah! as good as new : )

 

If you have any other queries about maintaining your jewellery, please let us know!