Jewelry Cleaning & Care

Protect gold jewelry by storing it safely or keeping it wrapped in a soft cloth when not being worn. Clean your gold jewelry with a cleaning solution of sudsy lukewarm water. Dry and polish jewelry with a chamois or soft cloth after cleaning and rinsing. Keep gold jewelry free from dust, moisture, perspiration, and makeup. Here is a list of important points about cleaning:

• Clean your jewelry with warm, soapy water and a soft cosmetic brush (like the type used to apply eye shadow).
• Be sure to dry the stones stone to keep the brilliance and shine.
• Remove your jewelry when doing heavy work such as gardening or moving.
• Keep your jewelry in a fabric-lined box for protection, and keep other jewelry pieces away to prevent scratches.
• Many skin rashes due to an accumulation of unwanted dirt on jewelry can be avoided by keeping your jewelry clean.
• Soap scum, hair, dirt, skin, and grease all collect into crevasses beneath gemstones. To look its absolute best, jewelry should be cleaned regularly. Stones are as beautiful as they are because of the way they reflect light, and jewelry cleaning is the best and only way to maintain this.
• Skin oil, soap, grease or hand lotion will drastically decrease the brilliance of your jewelry. Cleaning will alleviate the problem.

Jewelry Setting Metals Simplified:

There are many different metals and alloys used in modern jewelry making. The type of jewelry you can wear is not just determined by your wallet—but also by the way your body reacts to and tolerates exposure to metals.

GOLD ALLOYS, 14K GOLD & EASY CARE

Gold is one of the most precious metals in the world. It is present in the rivers, seas, and the earth's crust. Trace amounts are in plants and animals. It is estimated that only 125,000 tons of gold have been mined the world over since the beginning of time. It is, however, difficult and expensive to extract. In modern mining operations approximately 3 tons of ore are needed to extract one ounce of gold.

Gold is very durable and look no further than the nearest museum where gold jewelry, coins, and artifacts from ancient civilizations attest to the metal's enduring beauty and permanence. The many desirable qualities found in gold, along with its scarcity, have made it the most popular metal for use in jewelry today. Jewelers throughout the ages have preferred gold to all other metals for its beauty and ease of workmanship. Gold can be melted, or shaped, to create any design.

Gold is commonly known to be a non-reactive metal. 14K gold has a melting point of about 1550 degrees Fahrenheit. Gold is more malleable than any other metal and can be hammered into foil so thin that it is almost transparent. It has a unique ductility property allowing it to be drawn into wire so fine it can barely be seen. Gold is deep yellow in color. Its great reflectivity properties help keep its brightness and color from fading with time. Gold will not rust, tarnish, or corrode. Gold jewelry recovered from ancient Egyptian tombs is in the same state as when placed there over 4000 years ago.

Gold is softer than most other metals. Pure gold may easily be scratched. Fortunately, gold becomes harder when alloyed with other base metals. 14K Gold: In the United States, 14K Gold is used most commonly for jewelry. Fourteen-karat gold is 14/24ths, or slightly more than one-half pure gold. Jewelry of this fineness is marked "14K" or "585," the European designation meaning 58.5 percent gold.

Caring for gold jewelry—protect gold jewelry by storing it safely or keeping it wrapped in a soft cloth when not being worn. Clean your gold jewelry with a cleaning solution of sudsy lukewarm water. Dry and polish jewelry with a chamois or soft cloth after cleaning and rinsing. Keep gold jewelry free from dust, moisture, perspiration, and makeup.

Silver Alloys

Sterling silver is generally used in the United States, and that is what most people think of when they see silver. Silver also comes in various quality grades, measured by 1/1000 parts per gram. There are impurities that naturally occur in silver at the molecular level. These impurities consist of other metals—usually copper, but traces of other metals can also be found. These trace impurities are considered too costly to remove.

Sterling silver jewelry has a pronounced tendency to tarnish, although pure silver is also blackened by natural oxidation. Sterling silver is copper-silver alloy and is somewhat softer than most gold alloys. Therefore, it is more likely to be abraded to black dust by relative movement between the jewelry and the skin or clothing. The tarnish is always due to the contact with sulphur compounds. The main cause of tarnishing of silver is a trace of hydrogen sulfide gas in the air. The tarnish may turn the jewelry black and may also be rubbed off on the skin or clothing. A few people with especially moist skin may find that the sterling silver stains their skin green. This is due to the copper component of the silver alloy.

Some “silvers” contain no silver at all. German silver and nickel silver are names for alloys that look like silver but have no silver content. Other metals that may resemble silver are pewter, aluminum, and Monel metal. Trade names that suggest silver, such as Morton Silver, Silverine, and Silvertone, do not contain silver as a rule. Silver-plated items generally do not have much silver.

Plated And Filled Metals

Many jewelry items are made of either plated or filled metals. This is done to keep the cost of these items as low as possible. All plated metal parts will oxidize. Jewelry can be plated with gold in a variety of ways.

Gold plate refers to items that are mechanically plated, electroplated, or plated by any other means with gold to a base metal.

Gold-filled, gold overlay and rolled gold plate are terms used to describe jewelry that has a layer of at least 10 karat gold mechanically bonded to a base metal.

Vermeil (ver-may), a special type of gold plated product, consists of a base of sterling silver that is coated or plated with gold.

Gold electroplate describes jewelry that has a layer (at least .175 microns thick) of a minimum of 10 karat gold deposited on a base metal by an electrolytic process.

The terms gold flashed or gold washed describe products that have an extremely thin electroplating of gold (less than .175 microns thick). This will wear away more quickly than gold plate, gold-filled, or gold electroplate.

Plating and filling always wears away, quickly on the edges and higher surfaces, and then it looks a mess! Bottom line: Half-plated and half-oxidized jewelry is ghastly.