Tips to Keep Your Jewelry Clean.

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Protecting Your Jewelry

• Chemicals:
  Avoid wearing it while doing chores that involve the use of chemicals. Softer stones such as Pearls, Opals, Tanzanites, etc. are susceptible to household cleaners that have concentrated chemicals. For example Diamonds have extreme tolerance towards chemical resistance but silver reacts quickly towards chemical exposure tarnishing or discoloring immediately.
• Physical Activities:
  Remove your jewelry when doing physical activities such as working out at the gym or shoveling snow. This is especially true when you are wearing rings. The bottom of the shank gets severely abused. Moreover, stones could get chipped or broken with a hard blow to them.
• Separate Your Jewelry:
  It is important to keep your real/natural jewelry separate from your faux/costume jewelry. This way neither you nor anyone else (husbands or boyfriends) get confused. Store each piece of jewelry in independent jewelry pouches or ziplocks, thus preventing them from hitting and scratching each other. This is more true when you keep your harder stones such as diamonds with softer stones such as opals. Also Chains and necklaces have a tendency of getting knotted or kinked when kept together. Store your jewelry in proper jewelry boxes or in separate pouches or ziplocks.

Cleaning Your Jewelry

• Harder Stones (Untreated Diamonds, Rubies, Sapphires, Garnets):
  Diamond is the hardest substance and also one of the most chemically stable substance known to man. However, they can be broken, chipped and can definitely get dirty. Diamonds have great affinity towards dirt, oil and grease. They collect all kinds of dirt in everyday wear and contrary to common belief, washing hands with regular soap and water does not clean them. Gemstones such as rubies also get dirty due to perfumes and hand lotions and cleaning them with soap and water is not sufficient.

  There are several ways of cleaning them viz. Ultra Sonic Cleaner, Steam Machine, Gemstone Cleaner with Gem Cloth, Tooth paste and a soft bristle tooth brush and finally home based ammonia cleaner. The best way to clean them is first immersing them in an ultrasonic machine for few minutes and then blowing the residue away by steam, making your jewelry spotless. This is mostly done at a jewelry store. There are some home based sonic cleaners and steam machines that are now available. If they are not available to you then you could use home based cleaners that has ammonia in it, diluting it with water. This should provide you with good results. You can also clean your jewelry with a soft bristle brush and a toothpaste. Just rinse your jewelry in lukewarm water while softly brushing it with toothpaste. Finally you could get a jar of gemstone cleaner along with a gem cloth from your jeweler. Dip your jewelry in the jar, brush it slightly from all sides and let it soak for few minutes. You can then rinse it with lukewarm water while brushing the dirt off. All of these will give you equal result except for the steam cleaning machine. The steam machine works wonders.

• Softer Stones (Pearls, Opals, Emeralds, Tanzanites, etc)

Softer stones need more care and attention in cleaning. They are highly susceptible to chemicals and to quick temperature fluctuations. None of them should be put in utlrasonic cleaners, chemicals, cloth treated with chemicals and steam machines. The results could be disastrous.

Pearls are organic stones and quickly react to any form of chemicals like perfumes, hand lotions, hair spray, etc. Chemicals directly attack the nacre, ruining the luster, which causes patches on your pearl. It is recommended that you wear your pearl jewelry last after you have applied your perfumes, lotions, etc. They should not be worn along with any other jewelry items such as chains or even watches. They should be cleaned only with lukewarm water. Do not brush them in any way. You can then wipe it with a regular cotton cloth. The silk is delicate and gets stretched after a frame of time. It could break when the strand is worn on a regular basis. Hence, they need to be re-strung every 3 years if you wear them regularly.

Opals are water based stones. Sudden temperature changes cause them to crack in multiples(known as Crazing). They should thus be cleaned only in room temperature water (68°F - 75°F) and then wiped with a soft cotton cloth.

Emeralds, naturally coming out of the ground have several surface breaking inclusions in them. Almost all of them are treated through oiling to hide these inclusions. They cannot be immersed in ultrasonic cleaners or steam machines for this reason. The oiling will either discolor or come out during the cleaning process. Thus they can only be cleaned with room temperature water (68°F - 75°F) and a cotton cloth.

• Gold & Platinum Jewelry
  Gold and Platinum do not tarnish. You can clean them with a home ammonia based solution, a soft brush and luke warm water. You can then wipe it with a cotton cloth. They can also be put in ultra-sonic cleaners as well as steam machines.
  

• Silver Jewelry
  Silver tarnishes when it comes in contact with air. It is a slow but gradual process. There is a special chemical cloth or anti tarnish cream that is available for cleaning silver. You can find it in walmart or similar stores. Cleaning it in water will not make any difference.

• Inlay Jewelry, Filigree Work, Cameos, etc.
  Inlay is a process in which stones are covered with a special lacquer type material. It makes the jewelry setting style look even unlike tradtional methods of jewelry setting. Cameos are usually made out of soft and delicate stones like agate, onyx, mother of pearl, etc. Do not put these kinds of jewelry in the ultrasonic or steam machine. Keep them away from any chemical cleaners. The only way of cleaning them is through room temperature water and a very soft brush. Care should be taken while wearing this kind of jewelry. They are not meant for every day wear.

  In the case of jewelry containing filigree, they need to be inspected for their strength before cleaning. This is very true in the case of antique and estate jewelry. Most of the time, antique and estate jewelry have intricate filigree and delicate wire-work which is either weak, broken and needs repair. Hence it is necessary to examine them before applying any kind of pressure to them.