Care for Silver & Gold Jewelry

How should you take care of your jewelry? Very carefully!

Everyday Wear for Silver & Gold Jewelry

Some thoughts about everyday wear and how it will affect your new jewelry:

  • Consider taking your jewelry off before bathing, swimming, getting in the sauna

    • Water and air will work together to tarnish your pieces faster. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, and tarnish can be removed from high surfaces with a polishing cloth. Tarnish in low points and crevices will be more difficult to remove and possibly require professional attention. Just know what you’re getting into when you’re taking a dip with your finery on.

    • Gemstone can be affected by pool chemicals, such as chlorine; exposure is at your own risk.

  • Avoid impact—hard collisions can bend metal or loosen stones.

    • Hard metals and glass can scratch and deform softer metals like silver and gold. Jewelry on the hands and wrists is especially susceptible

    • Stacked rings will show their affection for each other in the form of wear and tear.

Cleaning for Silver & Gold Jewelry

  • Use mild, detergent-free soap and warm water.

  • Ultrasonic cleaning may damage or loosen stone settings; proceed at your own risk.

  • Use a jewelry polishing cloth with fine abrasives to restore shine and remove tarnish on high spots.

    • I recommend washing your jewelry after using a polishing cloth to remove any residual abrasives

Storage for Silver & Gold Jewelry

  • Look for that cool, dry place to store your jewelry.

  • Storing in humid environments (the bath room) will accelerate oxidation and surface tarnishing.

Care for Copper Jewelry

Everyday Wear for Copper Jewelry

In general, the care advice offered for Silver & Gold jewelry applies to copper jewelry as well. However, copper jewelry is expected to tarnish (oxidize) faster and more aggressively than silver or gold. You should expect to clean your copper jewelry more frequently than your silver or gold.

A simple cleaning method is recommended for copper jewelry. As excerpted from “PRESSIN’ MATTERS vol. 1”:

“The tarnish has become too aggressive. You miss the shiny red copper tones of yore (when you received your copper penny bracelet). Good news; copper tarnish is easy to remove. In fact, I strongly recommend periodically removing the tarnish from your copper penny jewelry - every month or so, if you wear it regularly. There are some oxides formed by copper that are unhealthy for human consumption; if you lick a highly oxidized piece of copper, like the Statue of Liberty, you will fall ill. Knocking off the tarnish every now and then is a requirement to keep your jewelry healthy.

You can buy a number of copper cleaning products marketed for treating copper cookware; I don’t think those products are really necessary for this application. An old home remedy will do. To clean your copper penny bracelet, you will need the following:

  • Salt

  • White Vinegar

  • Cotton swabs

Mix some salt and vinegar together - this creates an acidic solution that will “etch” the tarnish layer off the surface of the bracelet. You can dip the piece into a shallow bath of this solution, or you can gently apply it via cotton swab - my preferred method. Note that I do not recommend dunking set gemstones into an acidic solution like this; soft stones (Mohs hardness scale) may be susceptible to the acid etching and be dulled by this cleaning solution.

Within a minute or so of applying the solution, you’ll see the tarnish dissolve away, revealing that original red copper surface. It is critical that the vinegar and salt solution is rinsed from the piece; otherwise the etching reaction will continue. If vinegar is left in extended contact with the copper, it will begin to form the medieval pigment Verdigris (formal name Copper (II) acetate), that stimulating bright green tarnish that covers the aforementioned Statue of Liberty. This is a toxic compound that will make you nauseous if ingested (Or dead if you keep ingesting it in large quantities). Always rinse the cleaning solution from your jewelry!

The resulting finish will be free of tarnish, but quite flat. You can shine your copper jewelry with a fine abrasive cloth or a brass brush to get it gleaming once more. I recommend rinsing your jewelry after using a polishing cloth to remove any residual abrasives.