Caring for your Jewellery

Maintaining Tips

While you would think that showering with a gold necklace is fine, it is just good common practice to take off ALL jewelry when getting in the water (except small earrings).

Keep Away from Water

Remove your Jewelry Regularly

A general good habit is to remove jewelry before going to bed and when you exercise. For example, metal bars from lifting weights can scratch your metal. Or sleeping with your necklace or chain can cause it to wear faster.

Cleaning at Home

When Repairing your jewellery

Consult a professional always. In general, repairing solid gold items are possible and makes sense for their value. Silver and costume jewellery repairs can often be as expensive as the item itself. Repairs require experience and problem-solving.

Using a polishing cloth can easily clean silver, gold and stones. The polishing cloth will make your metal appear cleaner and shinier. For your stones, a soft old toothbrush and water, don’t even bother with soap, the brush will clear away "build-up". Never use toothpaste, as it is an abrasive material and can damage your stones.

Your Jewellery is not indestructible/invincible

Store out of Direct Sunlight

Keep your pieces in a dark space and not loose on window sills. For one reason, they can easily be lost, or worse the very powerful sun light can actually damage you stones.

Do not Wear Rings while Cooking

When a hands-on approach is involved with baking or cooking, it is recommended to remove rings. Build-up can occur under your ring or around stone settings, which dirties your stones and makes them appear dull and not as sparkly.

Your jewellery is meant to be worn and enjoyed, but it also needs care and maintenance. Over time, your stones and metal can get scratched, scuffed, and chipped. All stones softer than Diamond can show signs of wear, particularly cabochons, where more of the stone surface is exposed.

Rings with claw settings need regular maintenance to check that the prongs are not lifting or need retipping.

Professionally Clean your Pieces

Consider going to a local store (jeweler) that usual does it complimentary. The main reason is that common products may have abrasive materials in it that can scratch your metal or stones. Chemicals can also damage your stones if they are porous or have surface reaching fractures (cracks) e.g. Opal, Emerald, Sapphire/Ruby.

Repair Services

  • Stringing: Silk, Cord, Steel WireStringing: Silk, Cord, Steel wire

  • Pearl knotting.

  • Ring adjustments, i.e., sizing

  • Chain Repairs

  • Goldplating: 18k yellow gold

Solid vs. Gold Plating

Solid Gold

  • Most expensive

  • Can tarnish

  • Ideal for everyday wear

  • Very durable

Gold Filled

  • Thick layer of gold. A gold sheet layer is wrapped around the base material

  • Will last a long time

  • Expensive compared to plating, but much more affordable to solid gold

Gold Vermiel

  • Thicker layer of gold

  • A bit more expensive, still affordable

  • Can wear off

Gold plating

  • Thin layer of gold on base metals or silver

  • Most affordable

  • Can tarnish + wear off

The truth about plating

Honesty and transparency is the best policy. So if possible, I hope to share some knowledge that I hope will answer questions and stop misleading marketing. Plating is the cheapest way to have gold-coloured jewelry without having to pay the hefty price of gold.

Plating does not last. Sad, but true. Plating is a very thin layer of gold that can be added to base metals or precious metals like silver. When it comes to dicolouraion, the silver underneath can still cause it to tarnish. You can remove this with a polishing cloth. If it doesn’t tarnish, most likely it has another layer of protective plating or has silver plating beneath. Now, theoretically, there is nothing wrong with plating. It can completely transform how a piece looks and keep it affordable. The downside is that it will need to be re-plated in a matter of a year or so, depending on the wear and tear. That being said, some pieces can last just fine, such as earrings, for example, compared to rings, since they shouldn’t get damaged. The upside is that pieces of jewelry can be re-plated again, and it is relatively affordable.

There are also different types of gold layers, which the illustration above describes.

Ultimately, solid pieces of precious metal are the best buy, if they can be afforded. However, not everyone can, which is why I offer some of my pieces gold-plated or gold-filled. In addition, I also offer gold plating services.