Cleaning Gold Jewelry
Cleaning gold jewelries that do not consist of any soft pearls, crystals or gems is quite easy. You just need put the gold jewelry into warm sudsy water with of a couple of drops of moderate dish-washing liquid such as Ivory, Dawn or Simple Eco-friendly, and rub it carefully with your fingers or a cotton swab. For more abrasive cleaning, brush the gold jewelry lightly with a soft child tooth brush. Even with the included metals, gold is still very soft and quickly scratched.
Warning: Do not use tooth paste or baking soda to clean gold jewelries. Dishwashing liquids are enough for cleaning because toothpaste and baking sodas are very abrasive.
After cleaning the gold jewelry with dishwashing liquid, wash it thoroughly with warm water and dry with a cotton fabric. Avoid using paper items like tissues and other papers since they include bits of wood that can scratch the gold’s surface.
Let the gold jewelry dry naturally with air, leave it overnight if possible. Moisture speeds the tarnishing procedure so it is necessary to make sure that the gold jewelry is dry before keeping it on a secure place.
If the jewelry looked dull after drying, rub it delicately with a jewelry polishing fabric. Use a clean fabric, or a clean area of an old cloth, so that the gold is not scratched. To avoid producing a pattern on the gold, rub with the polishing cloth in varying straight lines, not in a circular movement.
Machine cleaning: The gold jewelry might need aggressive cleaning if your gold jewelry still looks dark after mild cleaning. A lot of jewelry experts have some sort of automatic cleaning devices, such as an ionic, ultrasonic or steam cleaner. They can also offer you guidance about whether such cleaning is safe for your specific piece of gold jewelry. If it is, they can completely clean your gold precious jewelry for you. The expert ultrasonic units used in jewelry establishments heats the cleaning solution so are more reliable than the little ultrasonics sold for house use.
Professional polishing: Some gold jewelries might not look good and new even after cleaning it. They might be scratched and needs considerable polishing to be glossy once more. This process is done in stages with abrasive documents, not with a polishing cloth, and is a job for your local jewelry expert. Such polishing will remove some gold so saving your jewelry very carefully will conserve your gold, and save you some money, too.
Gold-Filled Jewelry Cleaning
According to the United State law, gold-filled means that a minimum of 1/20th of the weight of the piece is a layer of gold that has been bonded by extreme heat and pressure to base metal. With that process, the outer gold layer becomes joined with the inner core of base metal and the outcome is a jewelry that has the appearance of gold, but is stronger and expenses much less.
It is essential to clean gold-filled jewelry delicately to prevent scratching the external layer of gold. Much better yet is to keep the pieces so thoroughly that they hardly need cleaning and never need any polishing aside from a gentle rub with a soft cloth to remove fingerprints.
Proper Storage
Keep each piece of gold jewelry separate from your other jewelries to avoid scratches. If the jewelry is a fragile gold chain, hanging it from a hook will keep the chain from getting tangled. Or stretch the chain out onto jewelry experts’ anti-tarnish tissue, roll up the tissue, then put the roll in your precious jewelry box, laying flat. That will keep the chain from getting knotted as well as decrease the chemical process that results in stain. You can also put it into a plastic bag and squeeze as much air out of it as you can before closing.
If you are properly taking care of your gold jewelries, you might not even need to clean them alwars. That implies shielding your gold jewelry from being scratched by various other pieces, keeping it in a dry environment using silica in your jewelry box or putting each piece in an airtight plastic bag.
Additional Information
In taking care of all kinds of jewelries, you must always remember not to wear it in a pool or jacuzzi or when using ammonia or cleaning bleach in the house. Bleach, including chlorine, will attack and liquefy the metal so that the more fragile parts, such as linking rings in a bracelet, will come reversed. It’s better to not put on gold jewelry in the shower either. The soap can leave a dull finish on the gold that is not easy to eliminate as soon as it develops.