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

Most damage is done while sleeping and exercising with pieces on. Not to mention, when it comes to neckwear, you sweat on it, add perfume, hairspray, lotion etc.

Cleaning at Home

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

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

Believe it or not, even cooking is a bad practice for wearing rings. Not to sound gross, but you won’t believe the build up that can occur under or inside a band (unless it is simple wedding band). In addition, it dirties your stones and makes them appear dull and not as sparkly.

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 poureous or have surface reaching fractures (cracks) e.g. Opal, Emerald, Sapphire/Ruby.

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.