Taking care of your jewellery

I really love my Dazzle Stik. It is quick to use and really works on both gold and diamonds.

I love cleaning my jewellery. I sit in front of the television with a bowl of warm water, my silver dip, gold dip, silver and gold polishing cloths and my Diamond Dazzle Stik and pamper my jewels. Once a week I clean the jewellery I wear every day. The other jewellery I clean if I am going to wear it and have not worn it for a while.

Once a year I take my valuable jewellery to a jeweller to have the clasps, links, stones, and settings checked. My expensive jewellery is all insured with individual insurance certificates, which I update with the current value every few years. I don’t have much that is valuable, but what I have is well taken care of.

If you wear silver, gold or diamonds every day (particularly rings), they pick up soap, lotions, oils, dirt, dust and fluff from your daily life, and over time they become dull. Silver in particular oxidises over time. I enjoy cleaning my jewellery because afterwards it really looks nice and sparkly!

I usually only wear rings (1 or 2 per hand) and maybe a bracelet, because at work I have to wear an ID card on a lanyard and it interferes with necklaces. Privately I don’t wear any jewellery except a pair of gold studs in my ears and my engagement and wedding rings. I never remove them except to clean them.

I never quite understand people who have lovely jewellery but never clean it or check the settings? Is it because they feel it is unlucky to remove a wedding ring, for example?

For cleaning gold and diamonds I:

make a solution of dishwashing liquid and warm water and soak the jewellery items, then gently brush the items with an old toothbrush before rinsing and drying OR
soak them for a few minutes in a gold cleaning liquid dip cleaner, brush with the brush provided, rinse and dry OR
use a diamond stick cleaner OR
use a gold polishing cloth

For sterling silver I:

soak them for a few minutes in a silver cleaning liquid dip cleaner, brush with the brush provided, rinse and dry OR
use a silver polishing cloth

I know people recommend using brandy, toothpaste or other things to clean jewellery, but I have always stuck to diluted dishwashing liquid or cleaners made specifically for jewellery.

My go-to brand for proprietary cleaners has always been Connoisseurs. They are readily available worldwide (even in the tiny African town I come from!), easy to find on Amazon, the prices are good, the products work extremely well, you can trust them, and they are very innovative. I had one of their sonic cleaners years ago and it worked very well. They also do a really nice travel jewellery pouch that contains anti-tarnishing properties.

I use their liquid dip cleaners for gold and silver

Their diamond stick polisher. This I really love because you wet the brush, brush your jewellery and rinse, for really amazing results. It takes less than a minute.

Their silver and gold polishing cloths

One thing I have always been wary of though, has been cleaning costume jewellery. It is often gold-plated with non-precious stones. I have been afraid of damaging or loosening the stones, or stripping the plating, so I tend to wear costume jewellery until it looks shabby and then dispose of it. One reason I prefer to wear real gold is that it is very durable (and a good investment). Silver and gold also looks great once you have worn it for a while and it develops that patina glow.

I see though, that Connoisseurs has a chart showing which jewellery can be cleaned with what cleaner and you can, indeed, clean costume jewellery using some of their cleaners.

They also show which stones are more delicate than others. This is really helpful for me as I don’t have clue about the properties of stones that are not diamonds, emeralds, sapphires or rubies.