How To Clean Your Jewelry At Home & Other Useful Tips

What does it take to properly maintain your gold and platinum jewelry – from fine jewelry to engagement rings and wedding rings? We’ll give you the complete rundown on how to clean jewelry at home. Here are ways How To Clean Your Jewelry At Home & Other Useful Tips.

Ways To Clean Your Engagement Ring At Home

How To Clean Yellow Gold Jewelry

Most yellow gold jewelry is offered in two different karats of metals: 14k and 18k. While 24k is pure gold, lower carats are mixed with other metals (like nickel, copper, and silver) to strengthen it to make it suitable for jewelry.

If you’re wondering how to clean gold jewelry, you’re lucky: yellow gold is slow to tarnish and dull and doesn’t require maintenance as frequently as other gold jewelry metals.

• Use: Dish soap + water, ammonia, or a polishing cloth.
• Avoid: Bleach and harsh scrubbing brushes

How To Clean White Gold Jewelry

White gold’s silvery luster is created by alloying yellow gold with white metals like nickel or zinc and finishing with rhodium plating. Normal wear and tear will result in the need for rhodium re-plating every 5-10 years to maintain white gold’s silvery appearance.

Strong chemicals can also wear down this rhodium plating, so remove your white gold rings when cleaning.

• Use: dish soap + water or a polishing cloth
• Avoid harsh chemicals which can strip the rhodium plating.

How To Clean Rose Gold Jewelry

Rose gold is a yellow gold/copper alloy. The gold gives it a malleability and sheen that’s perfect for jewelry, and the copper gives it its distinctive pink hue. It’s also the strongest of all the gold metals, so your rose gold jewelry can be worn more often with less chance of scratching.

• Use: dish soap + water or a polishing cloth
• Avoid: abrasive chemicals

How To Clean Platinum Jewelry

Platinum is a rare, valuable metal with a gorgeous silvery sheen that retains its white luster with minimal maintenance. It’s also the most durable of all the ring metals! In general, you’ll have to clean platinum jewelry less regularly than gold, and it will also scratch less.

• Use: dish soap + water or a polishing cloth.
• Avoid: Ammonia

Why Should You Clean Your Jewelry Regularly?

For sparkle: Your jewelry shines its brightest at its cleanest. Over time, thin layers of dust and oil accumulate and block light from reaching your jewelry’s surfaces. Without light, there’s no reflection, refraction, brilliance, or fire. So if you notice that your jewelry looks dull, your first thought should be to clean it.

For sanitization: jewelry is full of prongs and crevices that collect grime. This doesn’t just dull your jewelry’s shine; it also means your jewelry is constantly transferring germs between you and your surroundings. Think of regular cleaning like hand-washing your jewelry; it keeps it sanitized and healthy. Particularly in the era of COVID-19, sanitization is critical.

For safeguarding: A dirty ring is a damaged ring. Particulate build-up can scratch and discolor your jewelry metal. On the other hand, cleaning your jewelry too often or vigorously can also seriously damage your jewelry. Harsh cleaners on some metals can wear away plating, causing permanent discoloration.

How Often Should You Clean Your Jewelry?

How often should you clean your jewelry? That depends on how thoroughly you want to clean it. Regular, gentle cleaning should be performed weekly, while more thorough cleansing should only occur occasionally so that the harsh chemicals don’t damage your jewelry.

Light Cleaning: Every Week

Warm water + dish soap + soft toothbrush. Make your jewelry cleaner by filling a bowl with warm (not hot) water and then adding a few drops of dish soap. Put your jewelry in the mixture and let it sit for 15 minutes. Afterward, remove your jewelry from the bowl and scrub it clean with a soft-bristled toothbrush. Rinse, dry with a soft towel, and layout on a smooth surface to dry.

Polishing cloth. In a pinch, a regular microfiber cloth will do. However, specialty jewelers’ clothes are the best since they contain particular cleaning compounds formulated to polish and remove minor scratches in your jewelry.

Occasional Cleaning: Every 1-2 Months

Ammonia. For a deep cleaning at home, create a strong jewelry cleaner by adding one-part ammonia to six parts water. Let your jewelry sit in this mixture for no more than 1 minute. Remove, rinse under running water, dry with a soft cloth, and place on a towel to air dry altogether.

Deep Cleaning: 1-2 Times Per Year

• Free jewelry cleaning with Royi Sal. Either send your jewelry to our team for maintenance or take your jewelry to a local partner for a complimentary professional cleaning. Minor repairs are also free!
• Ultrasonic jewelry cleaning machine. These are similar to the devices used by professional jewelers. Ultrasound waves loosen grime from even the smallest niches, which only takes about 5 minutes. It may be worth investing in one if you want to give your jewelry a regular deep clean.

Expert Tip: Ultrasound jewelry cleaning doesn’t sanitize your jewelry, so it’s worth following up an ultrasonic treatment with a simple dish soap + water cleaning. The ultrasonic waves can also damage jewelry that contains tungsten or soft, porous gemstones like pearls.

Daily Habits To Protect Your Jewelry

To prevent tarnishing and scratching, it’s worth learning a few helpful jewelry habits. These actions are most important for protecting softer metals like yellow gold and plated metals like white gold, which can be most easily scratched or discolored.

1. Store each piece of jewelry in its cloth bag to prevent scratching.
2. Purchase a jewelry box that has a soft inner lining to stop pieces from scratching each other.
3. Keep a jeweler’s polishing cloth in your bag or backpack for quick use.
4. Take your jewelry off when you’re sleeping.
5. Remove your jewelry during strenuous activities, like gym or construction.
6. Don’t wear jewelry when you’re using caustic materials like household cleaners – or wear rubber gloves.
7. Keep your jewelry off while you apply makeup or hairspray.
8. Remove your jewelry before you swim in chlorinated pools and salt water.

A Tidy Summary

No matter what metal your jewelry is made from, it’s essential to maintain its sparkle via weekly cleanings with dish soap, warm water, and a soft-bristled toothbrush.

For a squeaky-clean professional shine, send your jewelry to us for a quick and complimentary deep cleaning, or take it to one of our brick-and-mortar partner jewelers. Or spend a bit of money to DIY and deep clean it with an ammonia-water mixture or purchase an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner.

Treating your jewelry right will help it look continuously brilliant throughout the years.

P.S. Royi Sal Jewelry, as a decades-long leader in silver jewelry design and manufacturing, invites you to download our latest magazine here and profit from the exceptional or best-seller jewelry designs at affordable prices in 2022 you will find in the magazine. Click here to download it now.