All You Need to Know about Cleaning and Storing Gold Jewelry
Keyword(s): gold jewelry
The U.S. gold jewelry market is worth approximately $600 million. Even though people can buy many different types of jewelry these days, they continue to buy gold jewelry in droves.
If you've bought gold jewelry online or in a store recently, you likely did it because you were wowed by how amazing it looked. But you should know that it isn't going to continue to look this great if you don't clean gold jewelry and store it properly.
Learning how to clean gold jewelry and how to store it will be of the utmost importance. By cleaning gold jewelry and storing it in the right way, you'll be able to keep it looking its absolute best for many years to come.
We've put together a guide for those who have either just bought gold jewelry or are thinking about buying gold jewelry soon. It'll help you with both cleaning and storing gold jewelry. Check it out below.
How to Clean Gold Jewelry
If you spend enough time on the internet trying to figure out how to clean gold jewelry, you're going to see people throw out all kinds of off-the-wall solutions. They'll recommend that you use everything from baking soda to toothpaste to commercial jewelry cleaners on your jewelry.
But you should not use any of these things on your jewelry. If you do, you might run the risk of scratching it and ruining its appearance.
Instead, you should stick to using warm water, dish soap, and a soft-bristled toothbrush when cleaning gold jewelry. Here are the steps you'll want to take with them.
Step 1: Mix Warm Water and Dish Soap
To start, you will want to fill a shallow dish with warm water and put one or two drops of dish soap into it. This should be all you'll need to clean your jewelry.
Mix the warm water and dish soap well until bubbles begin to form. This will let you know that the soap is ready to get down to business and make your jewelry shine again.
Step 2: Let Gold Jewelry Soak
After your warm water and dish soap are prepared, you should place a single piece of gold jewelry into your shallow dish and let it soak. It will need to soak for right around 15 minutes to get the best results.
Ideally, you should only put one piece of jewelry into your shallow dish at a time. It'll prevent different jewelry pieces from getting tangled up and possibly broken later on.
Step 3: Brush Gold Jewelry
Once your gold jewelry has spent 15 minutes soaking, you can pull it out and use your soft-bristled toothbrush on it. You should brush your jewelry from every angle so that you hit every link, clasp, etc.
You shouldn't have to brush your gold jewelry too hard at all to get it clean. Since it will have already spent some time soaking, any dirt that is on it should come right off without you having to use too much elbow grease.
Step 4: Rinse Gold Jewelry
When you're all finished brushing your gold jewelry, you should turn on cool water and rinse the jewelry underneath it. It should only have to sit under this water for a few seconds to get all the soap off it.
You should notice an immediate difference in the way your jewelry looks. It should sparkle more than it did before.
Step 5: Allow Gold Jewelry to Dry
When your gold jewelry is all clean, you might be tempted to put it right on and begin wearing it. But before doing this, you'll need to give it some time to dry.
The amount of time that a piece of jewelry will take to dry will depend on its design. But it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes or so to get dry.
Once your jewelry is dry, you can either put it back on and start wearing it again or store it somewhere safely (more on this in a moment!).
How Often Should Gold Jewelry Be Cleaned?
The good news for those who own high-quality gold jewelry is that it can be cleaned as often as you want. Gold is durable and shouldn't lose any of its luster when you clean it.
Because of this, you can get away with cleaning the jewelry that you wear all the time about once every couple of weeks. This should make it look better and last longer.
You won't have to clean jewelry that you only wear every so often each week. But you should try to get yourself into the habit of cleaning it after you wear it a few times.
How to Store Gold Jewelry
If you love certain pieces of gold jewelry, you're welcome to wear them around almost every day. You shouldn't stick them away in storage where other people won't be able to see them!
But there will inevitably be some gold jewelry pieces that you'll only want to wear from time to time. These jewelry pieces should be cleaned and then put into storage for safekeeping. Here are the steps you'll want to take when storing gold jewelry.
Step 1: Wrap Gold Jewelry in a Soft Cloth
Prior to tucking a piece of gold jewelry, you should wrap it up in a soft cloth so that it doesn't get scratched in storage. Something as simple as a microfiber cloth that you would use to clean a smartphone screen should do the trick.
Outside of protecting jewelry from other jewelry pieces, wrapping it up will also provide it with protection from the elements. You won't need to be too worried about it coming into contact with moisture, oxygen, etc.
Step 2: Place Gold Jewelry in a Jewelry Box
After you wrap a piece of gold jewelry up in a soft cloth, you should find a jewelry box for it. This box should have a soft fabric lining inside it to keep your jewelry safe.
Between the soft cloth that you use to wrap up jewelry and the fabric lining inside a jewelry box, you won't need to be concerned about anything scratching gold jewelry or damaging it in any other way.
Step 3: Store Gold Jewelry Pieces Separately
Some people will attempt to store multiple pieces of gold jewelry in the same jewelry box. You may be able to get away with this, but you might also find that your jewelry will get tangled up when you take this approach.
It'll be worth investing in one jewelry box for every piece of gold jewelry you have. Each of your jewelry boxes will be able to set your jewelry up with the protection it needs.
Step 4: Keep Gold Jewelry in the Right Environment
Any time you store any type of jewelry, you'll want to steer clear of keeping it in a place that's very hot or very cold. That will mean you'll want to avoid storing jewelry in a place like a hot attic or a chilly garage. You'll also want to keep it away from moisture that could cause it to tarnish.
Rather than storing gold jewelry in environments like this, you should aim to keep it in stable environments. The temperature shouldn't fluctuate too much, and there shouldn't be too much moisture in the air.
By choosing environments like this, you won't need to be worried about air, moisture, etc. wreaking havoc on your jewelry and affecting its appearance.
Step 5: Consider Locking Up Gold Jewelry
If your gold jewelry costs you a pretty penny, you might want to go the extra mile when storing it. Think about investing in a heavy-duty safe that you can stick your gold jewelry and all your jewelry for that matter in.
When you buy gold jewelry, you should look at it as an investment. It could be worth a lot of money, so the last thing you want to do is leave it in a position where it could get stolen. Locking it up in a safe will protect it for many years to come while also helping keep it in excellent condition.
Be Sure to Clean and Store Gold Jewelry Properly
If most of your jewelry is costume jewelry, you aren't going to have to spend too much time cleaning and storing it. But when you upgrade to gold jewelry, it'll be a much different story.
This kind of jewelry will need to be maintained so that it always shines. It'll also need to be stored in the right way so that it keeps on shining for the foreseeable future. Use all the tips you learned here on how to clean gold jewelry and store it to your advantage.
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