CLEANING
Gems and jewelry always look their best when they are
clean. There are many metal cleaners, tarnish removers and
polishes on the market; most of these are fine for metals
but may damage or discolor certain gems. A rouge cloth, a
soft cloth impregnated with red diatomaceous earth (also
known as jewelers’ rouge), available at most hardware
stores, is good for removing fine scratches and tarnish
from metal surfaces. Buy one for each type of metal you
want to polish--silver, gold, platinum--and keep them
separate. Toothpaste is NOT a good metal polish and may
damage certain gems. Ultrasonic cleaners are fine for plain
gold jewelry, especially chains, but they can fracture
opals, pearls, emeralds, or in fact any gem with open
inclusions, and most ultrasonic cleaning solutions are not
suitable for organic gems and certain precious stones like
turquoise and malachite. Cleaning tips for specific gems
can be found under the consumer advisor sidebar for that
gem in Geology 306 on the World Wide Web: http://seismo.berkeley.edu/~jill/wisc/306.html
When wearing jewelry, apply common sense liberally: don’t
sleep with your jewelry on, especially chains. Water will
make rings slip off, so leave rings at home when you’re
enjoying water sports. I can’t count the number of sad
tales I’ve heard about vain attempts to retrieve a beloved
wedding ring from the lake. Remove hand jewelry before
gardening, housecleaning, or any work where your jewelry
may come in contact with hard or rough surfaces. You’d be
surprised how much damage can be done by a steel filing
cabinet or a car door. And if you have to remove an earring
or ring (or any other jewelry, for that matter) when you’re
out and about, don’t put it in a coin purse or in a pocket
with coin or keys.
Two chemical hazards to jewelry are bleach and mercury. A
quick dip in bleach to kill germs, followed by a good rinse
in water, is no problem for most jewelry. (Malachite,
turquoise and organic gems like pearl and coral are the
exception and should not be dipped in ANY chemical
cleaner.) But if gold jewelry is soaked in bleach for any
period of time, the alloy metals start to dissolve. This
damage is subtle but can result in cracks appearing if the
metal is stressed.
Mercury, the liquid metal in many thermometers, will bond
with gold to form a poisonous amalgam that can’t be
removed. If you get mercury on a ring, take it to a jeweler
immediately. The affected area can sometimes be ground off
or cut out and replaced if the mercury hasn’t migrated too
far up the ring shank.