How to take care of gold jewelery

Gold is one of the most prized possessions of any household. Gold is bought to celebrate auspicious occasions and to commemorate marriages, anniversaries and other landmarks in one’s life. It is passed on as an heirloom from a mother to her children and grandchildren. History reveals that many a war have been waged to possess hordes of this metal. The conservative savers opt to invest in gold as gold appreciates in value the way, very few other things do. Whatever be your reason for buying this sunshine metal, regular and proper care goes a long way to ensure that it stands you in good stead!

Care of gold

Gold could be found in good old yellow finish or it could be plated with rhodium to be called white gold and sometimes, it may be rose colored depending upon the metal that was used as an alloy along with gold to give the unique color. Gold is relatively an easy metal to take care of, and unless you are really careless about taking care of it, it should do well. A few golden rules though:

• Avoid wearing gold all the time, especially while taking a bath, applying moisturizer, creams and dyes. Over a period of time these products tend to mask the brilliant sparkle of the metal.

• Take care to remove all gold jewelery when you are doing manual work such as gardening, washing etc. It would do good to wear gloves or remove all jewelery pieces which will be in touch with abrasive mud and harsh chemicals.

• Beach is not the best place to wear your gold jewelery to either. Sand at the beach could chafe the gold, causing it to lose its sheen as well as turn out to be rough.

• Avoid wearing to swimming pool as the chlorinated water affects its luster.

• In case of rhodium plated white gold, take care to get it checked and polished in a couple of years( or less frequently, depending upon the usage) by a professional jeweler.

• A professional jeweler is really the best person to take care of high value gold jewelery studded with precious and semi precious stones such as polki. The jeweler will ensure that the gold underlying the jewelery pieces is clean, without causing any damage to the overlaying stones and ensuring the sheen of the gold shines through the stones.

Cleaning your gold jewelery

Ideally simple designs are okay to be cleaned at home by any of the below methods. Remember, it is always better to take more intricate pieces of your jewellery once in a while to the jeweller to check the links, stone setting and for professional cleaning.

• Dip your gold pieces in a warm soapy solution made with a gentle liquid detergent, use a soft baby tooth brush to clean out the crevices and wipe clean with a soft cloth.

• A mild ammonia solution, where you mix one part of ammonia with 4 parts of warm water and dip the gold in this mixture for about a minute. Repeat the process of using a soft baby brush and wiping dry as stated above.

• There could be a lot of gold cleansing solutions available in the market, take care to select one only after reviewing the product with your jeweller to rule out any possible side effects.

• A lot of people vouch for using a non abrasive tooth paste or powder for cleaning their gold jewellery. While there is no scientific proof of a tooth paste actually cleaning the gold, it does appear to be a popular method and does show some improvement in the sparkle of the metal. Take care to dab a bit of the powder/ paste with soft cotton and massage it on to the gold. Wipe clean with a moist warm towel.

Gold Storage

Whether you have invested in gold in the form of jewellery or in coin and biscuit form, keep the metal in a fabric lined box.

• Ideally, the fabric should be soft such as brushed cotton, satin or velvet. Do not keep too many pieces in one box or in a pouch, as there is a danger of scratches appearing over a period of time.

• If you intend keeping your jewelery in one box, ensure that you wrap the pieces individually in soft tissue paper or cotton. Take care while removing this packing of cotton / tissue paper when you take out your jewelery to wear, lest the gold gets entangled and snaps at the links.

• Avoid storing diamonds / stones along with only gold jewellery as diamonds and stones are much stronger than gold and can potentially scratch the surface.