Monkley Designs Jewelry

Jewelry Care

Tips for jewelry care

General Cleaning Tips

• Most of the time, all you need to do to keep your jewelry clean and ready to wear is to use a soft, 100% cotton cloth to gently wipe each piece clean after wearing. To help retard tarnish between wearings, store your jewelry in a cool, dry, dark place. A zip-seal bag with the air gently pressed out of it will greatly prevent tarnish.
• To remove fingerprints, oils or dirt, add a small amount of mild soap to a half cup of warm water, soak for 2-3 minutes, rinse thoroughly with clean water and use a soft cotton cloth to pat dry your pieces. Make sure they are completely dry before storing them.
• Never use toothpaste or other abrasives to clean metal or stones, and avoid abrasive commercial jewelry cleaners or "dips," especially on pieces with an oxidized finish or patina. Silver polish can remove the color, and harsh polishing cleaners will alter the antique look of your jewelry.
• Never use dips on gemstones or pearls. To remove excessive tarnish on silver, polish with a 100% cotton cloth and a non-abrasive metal cleaner. Be sure to remove any cleaner from the gemstones and rinse carefully with clean water.
• Avoid soaking porous materials such as cloisonne, pearls, amber, lapis lazuli, turquoise, emerald, malachite, or onyx. These may absorb chemicals, which can cause discoloration in the stone. Wipe them gently with a moist cloth until clean. Never place cloisonne or stones in an ultrasonic cleaner, ammonia, or chemical solution.

Item Specific Care

Opals

• Do not soak opals. Wipe them clean with a soft cleaning cloth.

Hematite

• This is a soft ore of iron which can rust if left damp. It should be cleaned with just a soft polishing cloth.
• If you must clean the silver on jewelry bearing hematite, rinse the stone in water as well, and then blow it dry in high heat and leave it out overnight to completely dry. Remember, the stone will be hot to the touch.

Pearls

• The surface coating, or "nacre" of cultured pearls is a soft organic material which requires special care to prevent chipping, cracking or discoloration.
• In addition to working with chemicals, never wear pearls while bathing or swimming.
• Use a clean, soft, dry cloth to wipe your pearls clean after wearing, and store them in a soft pouch or cloth. Do not store pearls in plastic; in addition to deliterious moisture levels, many plastics emit chemicals which are damaging to pearls.
• Wash pearls in a mild soap solution and rinse well. Allow them to air dry laying on a soft towel.
• If your pearls become more heavily soiled, have them professionally cleaned or restrung. You should have this done approximately every two years, and more frequently if you wear them often. Wear and pollution weaken the silk fibers on which they are strung.

Wearing and Storing

• Always remove your rings and jewelry before using chemical products, especially caustic substances such as bleach. Petroleum-based products are especially harmful and can actually "melt " amber.
• Do not apply makeup, perfume, or hairspray while wearing your jewelry. Wait for them to dry before putting on your jewelry.
• Do not leave your jewelry lying in the sun, which can cause discoloration or fading.
• Do not pull, tug, or twist your jewelry, especially by the jewels or pearls. Sterling silver wire is a delicate filament and will stretch and break if subjected to too much stress. Silk, satin, leather and even stainless steel will also stretch.
• Store your jewelry inside a jewelry box or pouch, it's best not to hang your jewelry.

Which Cleaner to use

Jewel Brite has been recommended to me to safely clean all jewelry components , including pearls and soft stones. Although Jewel Brite claims to be safe for pearls, I would not recommend dipping pearls or opals in the solution. Carefully remove the tarnish on the silver near the pearls using a soft cloth and rinse both the silver and pearls with water and thoroughly pat them dry.

Tarnish & How to remove it at home

Tarnish (dark spots that spread across sterling silver) is like rust on your jewelry. There are several ways to remove it, but the least damaging you can easily do at home with a glass dish, hot water, baking soda, and aluminum foil.

• Place a piece of aluminum foil in the bottom of a shallow dish. (I use a glass baking dish.) Set the tarnished item directly on the aluminum foil; it has to be in contact with the aluminum.
• Heat a quart of water to boiling in a saucepan, then set it in the sink and slowly add 1/4 cup baking soda. Be careful, because it might fizz up and spill over, which is why you add the baking soda slowly & in the sink. Stir until the baking soda is dissolved.
• Pour the water into the dish until the tarnished item is immersed. Slightly tarnished pieces will return to silver almost instantly; badly tarnished items will take longer.
• You can also use this for flatware or silver/silverplated dishes. Very badly tarnished pieces may look ruined ... all you have to do is get a little baking soda on a soft, 100% cotton pad, and *gently* buff the silver. The dull grey and residual black will fall away, and the silver will be nice and shiny again (there may have some "water spots" or "pits" from the tarnish). Tarnish is destructive and eats into the silver, just like rust is destructive and eats into steel.
• For larger pieces, just use more water. The ration of water to baking soda is one cup of soda for every gallon of water.

Why it works

Tarnish is composed of silver sulfide, a mix of silver and any sulfur it comes into contact with thru contact with the air and other objects. It basically eats away the surface of the silver. Most removal methods involve removing the tarnish AND the silver that has been destroyed by it. Instead of doing that, this method converts the tarnish back into silver thru an electrochemical reaction.

Sulfur more easily attaches to aluminum than it does to silver. The baking soda and hot water are the catalysts for the chemical reaction that causes the silver sulfide atoms to react with the aluminum. Give it a push with a tiny electrical charge (generated between the silver and the aluminum), and the sulfur atoms let go of the silver to go bond with the aluminum instead. Think of it as a choice between one bite of chocolate cake and the whole piece...which would you go for? Apparently, sulfur atoms are no different than you or I. And that, in a simplified nutshell, is why this works and is less damaging to your sterling silver pieces than dips or polishes!

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