How to Care, Store, and Maintain Your Fine Jewellery

Whether you are purchasing new or previously enjoyed fine jewellery from a pawn shop or a prestigious store front, sooner or later the time will come where you have to take care of it and give it a little bit of a gentle cleaning, repairs, or even resize it.

Image by simone-walsh via Flickr

This article should be able to help you make some good decisions in terms of how to preserve your gold jewellery so they last for generations to come.

How to Preserve, Maintain, Resize, and Clean Fine Jewellery

1. Choose the Right Jewellery for Your Lifestyle

For those that work with their hands on a daily basis in a rough and tumble sort of way –and do not want to take off your jewellery while doing so— you might want to go with fine jewellery that is composed of other precious metals other than gold or silver.

For those who put their fine jewellery through a fair amount of abuse, consider tungsten, platinum, or titanium. These metals are far more durable than gold or silver. The only caveat is that resizing them is virtually impossible. The results are far less ideal, let alone possible, than that of other precious metals sold at shops both online and off such as those purchased at Simon West Fine Jewellery in Melbourne.

2. The Best Way to Clean Fine Jewellery

We have two ways to suggest in this regard; to clean your fine jewellery in a safe way, we recommend either cleaning your pieces with salt, soda, and dish-washing liquid cleaner in a bowl. Let them sit for 5 – 10 minutes and wipe them with a soft towel.

For more complicated pieces that are full of intricacies, consider the benefits of using a sonic vibration cleaner. In a nutshell, these cleaning tools shake your jewellery at an ultrasonic level and can do so without chemicals or soaps for the most part; they vibrate the imperfections away. We asked our local fine jeweller professional for help cleaning our Melbourne wedding bands for men at Simon West Jewellery and this method worked like a charm; good as new!

If your jewellery is damaged we highly recommend seeking professional advice from a local jeweller before going ahead and committing to either of these methods.

3. Storing Fine Jewellery

In order to store fine jewellery in a way that will not hurt it or cause scratches we recommend storing your pieces in a clean, padded box which is always left out of and away from sunlight or harsh chemicals in the air.

Keep your jewellery secure (consider using a safe bolted to the floor), keep an inventory, and if you choose to travel with your jewellery always keep an inventory.

Anti-tarnish strips can be purchased to keep away harmful oxidants that will deplete the lustre and shine from your fine jewellery pieces.

In Conclusion

There are a million and one ways to keep your jewellery safe and clean and you might have your own ideas on how to protect your own pieces. If you’d like to share, please leave us a note in the comments!