Cleaning Your Jewelry
We get this question quite frequently: “How should I clean my jewelry?” We’ve heard all kinds of stories from people, both good and bad, so here are a few tips to help you.
Some good methods:
- Mix mild soap and warm water in a container, let your ring soak in there for an hour or two (or overnight), and then use a toothbrush to brush your stones. Rinse it off, and you’re good to go!
- Use our K-Jon’s jewelry cleaner. Your cleaning solution comes in a K-Jon’s jar with a basket used to lower your jewelry down into the container. After soaking the jewelry in the solution, use the brush included with it to give it a good scrubbing. Your jewelry should come out sparkling!
- Home jewelry cleaners. These are usually small “ultrasonic” cleaners that use a special vibration to “dislodge” the buildup on your ring. Quite handy, but some may not want to spend as much. Also, there are quite a few precautions to take with this method. See below.
Precautions:
- DON’T USE BLEACH!! This is by far the biggest enemy of fine jewelry. We’ve heard stories of stones “dissolving” in bleach, and gold does become pitted (little holes) because of the corrosion of the alloys in the metal. Very, very bad things happen when you put your jewelry in bleach, so keep it away from those household cleaners, and don’t swim with your jewelry on.
- Don’t use ammonia. There are still a few jewelers who use this, and in specific cases, we still use it, but for the most part, stay away from it. It sometimes can damage white metals (i.e. white gold).
- Be very selective on the stones you put in that home “ultrasonic” machine mentioned above. Some stones can get cracked and destroyed in different ways by the solution and the vibration. Keep the following stones (partial list) out of that cleaner:
- Opals
- Peridot
- Tanzanite
- Foil Backs (“rhinestones”)
- Pearl
- Ivory
- Coral
- Star Sapphire/Ruby
- Emerald
There are a few other precautions to take into consideration, but that should cover most of the issues people run into. Give us a call, and we can let you know what to do in specific situations.
805-466-7248
inquire@kjons.com
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