Keeping jewellery is an easy and inoffensive home comfort; jewellery elevates practically every outfit, and can carry meaning far beyond its aesthetic form. But keeping it isn’t as simple as starting a collection. If you’re serious about investing in quality jewellery, you’ll also need to be serious about keeping it with care. With this in mind, here are some handy tips to ensure you get the best from your pieces.
Keep It Dry
One of the cardinal rules of keeping jewellery is to keep it dry. This is not an unbreakable rule, and water naturally plays a part in the cleaning process – which we will touch on shortly – but naturally, keeping your jewellery dry maintains its condition for longer.
Water is a principal catalyst for corrosion, and can make short work of more complex mechanisms such as locket or bracelet clasps. Water spots can bed in, even if the piece suffered only a light spritz; humidity can do just as much harm, too! Silica gel in your jewellery case is one way to tackle this.
Store in a Cool, Dark Place
The title here is, of course, a little tongue in cheek – but there is some method to treating your jewellery like a perishable foodstuff. For the most part, jewellery should be kept out of sunlight where possible. Sustained exposure to sunlight can damage jewellery, particularly silver and gemstones, in multiple ways.
Vacillating heat conditions can increase the rate at which silver sulphide is formed, meaning your jewellery pieces tarnish quicker. Meanwhile, prolonged exposure to UV rays inspires that same tarnish to effectively dissolve. Combined, silver jewellery not only wears quicker, but wears away quicker when left in sunlight! UV rays can also have detrimental impacts on coloured gems, fading or otherwise changing the colour over time.
No Fancy Cleaning Products
Whether you’re building a jewellery collection to keep in the family for generations, or gearing up to sell some statement pieces on, you’ll likely be thinking about the best ways to clean your jewellery up for the best possible finish. The secret is actually not that much of a secret at all: warm water and washing-up liquid.
While it is true that there are a great many specialised cleaning products and solutions, used by professional jewellers in preparing and maintaining pieces, you do not need any of them. In the wrong concentrations, they could in fact damage your pieces. Warm water and washing up liquid are enough to remove lipids from surfaces, without messing with the finish or patina. If you like the aged look to certain pieces, silver dip is not your friend!
Jewellery Last
And finally, a small but practical point for the active jewellery users and wearers out there: where possible, put your jewellery on at the last possible moment! Whatever the occasion, your necklaces, rings or bracelets should be the finishing touch to your outfit – after having dressed, and after having applied perfume or aftershave. Not only do you avoid snagging clothes on pieces and potentially damaging them, but you also protect your jewellery from potential harm caused by the chemicals in your perfume.
