Jewellery Polishing & Cleaning

It is essential to keep good care of your jewellery if you want it to look at its best. It is also important to have your jewellery checked at least once a year to make sure everything is as it should be.

For particularly ornate pieces, or pieces that experience hard wear, every three or so months would be more appropriate. Better safe than sorry definitely rings true in this instance. If a setting happens to be worn or a stone is loose, then a repair will be far cheaper than replacing a lost stone or a lost item of jewellery. If the string on a pearl or beaded necklace starts to become loose or fray, it is best to bring it to us for restringing. Remember to store pearls, or any beaded necklace, flat, in a silk pouch if at all possible. We would always recommend that there are knots tied between the pearls when they are restrung – if the string breaks you will only lose one or two as opposed to potentially the whole string.

There are a number of things you can do to care for your jewellery and protect it from wear and tear. Gold is a fairly soft metal and the higher the gold content, the softer the piece; for example, high carat gold is likely to be softer than low carat. As a result it is suggested that you wear similar quality pieces together to avoid the softer items becoming scratched. Sterling silver will polish up with a simple polishing cloth. For more tarnished pieces, silver 'foam' or dip can be used to good effect. If there is pitting in the surface of the silver itself, polishing by the workshop will be required to restore the surface finish. It is important that you do not keep diamond jewellery items stored together loose, as they are likely to scratch each other. Some precious stones, such as opal and turquoise, are quite porous. As a result, you should try not to submerge them in water; at the same time, try not to dry them out too much – in extreme circumstances they may crack.