By Anita Hale


If you're fanatical about your jewellery you'll need to find out the ideal method to look after it and guarantee it stays as sparkly as the moment you first saw it. Read on for some trouble-free guidance about how to take good care of your necklaces, bracelets and rings.

For a start, just about all jewellery will suffer from wear and tear over the course of its lifetime. This is somewhat inevitable. Nevertheless, you can markedly minimize this deterioration by limiting when and where you decide to put on your jewellery. Case in point, you need to detach bracelets, rings and necklaces before you go to bed to avoid inadvertent marking. Moisture may also encourage discolouration and because of this it is best to take off metal jewellery whilst playing sport. Some other chemicals that you need to keep apart from your jewellery are present in hair spray, perfume and nail polish remover. Therefore, be careful when using these around your jewellery.

Oxidised metals have grown much more common place. As such, unique attention and care must be given to successfully sustain the darkened appearance created by the oxidation. Thus, like silver and gold, do not submerge in chlorine. Furthermore, make sure you avoid using silver polish when cleaning these items given that this will reduce the impact of the oxidation. This recommendation can also be applied to pearls.

With jewellery that isn't oxidised proper care must be used to stop this from happening. Salad dressings, some types of rubber and even just table salt can contain sulphur compounds that could potentially cause oxidation should they make contact with silver jewellery. Oxidation results in tarnishing which renders the metal unsightly and discoloured.

It's possible to remove tarnish by cleaning with special silver polish. However, this ought to be applied with extreme caution as some of those on the market are abrasive and can negatively affect the silver. Rather, for daily cleaning start using a special silver polishing cloth. To get rid of dirt, try using soapy lukewarm water and a toothbrush. Why a toothbrush? Well, due to their small head and bristles they are ideal for cleaning in between the fiddly details on certain lavish designs.

Finally, it's important to know that pure metals, like good quality gold, are a lot less scratch-resistant due to their softness. Lower purity metals are produced from a higher density of alloys, in turn causing them to be much harder and more robust. To avoid tell-tale dents and scuff marks to your best gold pieces, it is recommended to ensure that they're out of contact with tougher metals.




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