How To Clean Gold Silver And Diamond Jewellery

How to Clean Gold, Silver and Diamond Jewellery

For your best jewellery, you really need to provide the best care possible.  For optimum jewellery preservation, you can take it to a jeweller’s shop for professional cleaning and polishing once or twice a year, depending on how often it’s used or how dirty it gets. This is also a good opportunity to get adjustments made, or even improvements made on your jewellery. But for between times, there are some easy ways to keep your better jewellery clean and sparkling without having to call in the experts. Here are a few tips for cleaning your gold, silver and pearl jewellery.

How to Clean Silver Jewellery

To clean silver jewellery, first rinse in warm water and dab dry with a soft cloth. If your silver looks dark, it is probably slightly tarnished; use a silver-polishing cloth or commercial silver-cleaning fluid to remove tarnish and bring back the shine. Silver cleaner won’t hurt gold and platinum, but it doesn’t work on them, either.  If your jewellery has a lot of small crevices, use a silver-cleaning paste. Don’t use toothpaste or other abrasive cleaners as you would on fashion jewellery, as it may scratch surfaces. Rub dry with a soft towel.

How to Clean Gold Jewellery

To clean gold jewellery, soak it for 10 minutes in a solution of two cups warm water and a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid. Scrub gently with a soft toothbrush. Rinse with warm water, and dry with a clean towel. If your jewellery is 24k gold, you can clean it with many solutions, since gold is sturdy and can withstand many chemicals. But dishwashing liquid, as simple as it sounds, works great!

How to Clean Diamond Jewellery

To clean diamond jewellery, soak it for 15 minutes in a solution of one cup of warm water with 1/8 cup ammonia. Then scrub lightly with a soft toothbrush, making sure to reach into the small areas around the setting. Rinse with warm water, and set it on a sheet of facial or bathroom tissue to dry. If your diamond jewellery has a platinum setting, this method also cleans the metal.

If you read our post last week on cleaning costume jewellery, note that some of the solutions we suggested there are not appropriate for fine jewellery, and vice versa! Be very careful when using ammonia, toothpaste and other solutions to make sure they are the right cleaner for the right material.

Do you have a jewellery cleaning tip? Feel free to share it here!

Next week: All About Pearl and Turquoise Jewellery