How and what to clean gold at home

How to clean gold at home? This question is more relevant today than ever, and many people ask it. Nowadays, gold items are worn by everyone: women, men, children, the elderly. Moreover, even with pets it is often possible to see a gilded pendant on a collar or other similar dog, cat accessory.

Gold items can be everyday items that a person wears every day without taking off, or holiday items, which await a special occasion in the box. Oddly enough, but you need to care for both categories of jewelry. We will figure out how to do it right at home.

General guidelines for cleaning gold jewelry

No matter how careful the attitude to the gold jewelry may be, over time you will notice that it has darkened, faded, lost its original luster and the play of light in stones is not the same as before. To return the jewelry to a truly royal look, you can clean the gold at home, wash and polish the stones. How to clean gold? On sale there is a whole arsenal of specialized tools, but the average person, as a rule, uses improvised tools.

To prepare the cleaning solution, you will need the following ingredients in various variations, which will be described below:

• soap;
• washing powder;
• dishwashing liquid;
• baking soda;
• ammonia;
• hydrogen peroxide.

From improvised means you can prepare:

• a toothbrush with cropped bristles;
• soft cloth;
• dishes for soaking;
• cookware for boiling (glass or enamelled ladle).

Since contaminants vary in intensity, three different methods can be used:

• rubbing;
• soak;
• boiling.

Before you clean the gold at home, you should answer a few questions:

• Are the items adorned with stones? Only a soap solution should be used to clean them. Although for hard gems having an index on the Mohs scale above 7, artillery “heavier” can be used.

• Are the stones glued or have a mount in the form of a frame? If only glued, then the product can not be soaked. It is better to do wiping.
• Is it gold or gilded? If the items are gilded, only soap and rubbing is suitable. In other ways, gilding can be damaged, since it is not known how thin its layer is. When processing with a soapy solution, it is good to add 2-3 drops of ammonia to it. You can make the gilding shine by wiping with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. If, in addition to dust and grease, the gilding is covered with dirt, you cannot brush it. It is better to use a soft sponge.

• Is gold white? Then you should know how to clean white gold. For this, a solution with ammonia is used. The tool, which includes abrasive elements, can not be used so as not to damage the upper rhodium layer, which, as a rule, is coated with white gold products.

• What decoration do you need to clean? For example, it is important to know how to clean the gold chain. Firstly, it has many inaccessible places - notches in the links. So that all contaminants are washed, you can soak the product or cook it. Secondly, if the neck chain or bracelet is thin, you should be extremely careful with them, especially when you need to polish them after washing. If the chain is so tender that it is scary to handle it with a cloth, dry it with a hairdryer.

Tip: the optimal frequency of cleaning gold items is once every 3-4 months.However, earrings can be cleaned more often - 1 time per month, as they become contaminated faster, directly in contact with cosmetics and hair products. Also, sometimes the holes in the ears begin to become inflamed, for example, after wearing poor-quality jewelry, and when put on again, gold earrings get dirty, leaving a plaque with an unpleasant odor on them.

How can I clean gold

If there is no trace left from the initial shine, and the jewelry itself has darkened, the time has come to bring it to feelings. To get rid of blackness, you need to know what causes it. Gold itself, being a noble inert metal, does not oxidize. For this reason, many ornaments are gilded. She not only decorates the product, but also protects it. But other metals included in its composition are more susceptible to external influences and darken over time.

Thus, jewelry made of low-grade material (for example, with a sample of 375 - 38% gold) with a large share of the ligature blackens much more often. Gold 585 - the most successful combination of 59% gold and ligatures (silver, palladium, nickel and copper) due to its ductility, strength and the ability not to tarnish in contact with air, most beloved by jewelers.

Also, jewelry loses its shine due to greasy plaque, which covers rings, earrings and bracelets from contact with human skin. To cope with these problems, you will need an oxidizing agent (ammonia, hydrogen peroxide) and a fat-dissolving agent (washing powder, dishwashing detergent, soap). And to remove strong contaminants you will need an abrasive (baking soda).

Answer the questions above and choose the most suitable way to clean your jewelry.

• Cleaning with ammonia and washing powder.

Prepare the solution: mix 1 cup boiling water in 1 cup. l washing powder and 1 tsp. ammonia (ammonia solution). Soak for 60 minutes, then brush with a toothbrush. Rinse the jewelry under a stream of clean water. To polish the product, use a dry soft cloth.

• Cleaning with hydrogen peroxide, ammonia and liquid soap.

Prepare a solution: mix 1 cup of warm water, 1 tsp. baby liquid soap, 1 tsp. ammonia and 30 ml of hydrogen peroxide. Soak the ornaments in a solution for 10-15 minutes, then rinse with clean water and dry. If necessary, you can brush the decoration with a toothbrush.

• Cleaning with dishwashing detergent.

Prepare a solution: dilute the dishwashing detergent (approximately 1 tsp) in 1 glass of water. Soak the jewelry overnight, and rinse and dry in the morning. To polish gold, use a soft cloth: flannel or specially designed for polishing jewelry.

• Soap gruel.

Prepare a solution: cut a bar of soap and dilute it with liquid soap. Place the product in a concentrated soap solution for 1-2 hours. Then brush it, rinse with clean water and polish.

• Cleaning by boiling with baking soda.

Prepare a solution: in 1 cup of water, dissolve 2 tbsp. l baking soda. Choose the right dishes: glass or enameled. Put a soft cloth on the bottom of the dishes, place decorations on it and pour the solution. Boil for 1-2 minutes, then rinse.

If there is no time to soak the jewelry, you can quickly clean them by wiping with clean ammonia or medical alcohol. Put it on a cotton pad and wipe the product. If we are talking about earrings, then remove hydrogen-gray plaque with an unpleasant odor will help hydrogen peroxide.

Just put the product on the earring and wait for the end of the violent reaction with the formation of foam. Then wipe the jewelry with alcohol and polish to give shine. For disinfection, earlobes can also be treated with a cotton pad moistened with hydrogen peroxide.

Tip: to clean the gold, you can use only soft tissues and toothbrushes with a delicate pile, for example, old children's toothbrushes marked 0+.

We clean jewelry with stones

The cleaning options for gold products described above are suitable for jewelry without additional decorative elements: stones, enamel, etc. But if your favorite earrings are decorated, for example, with diamonds, you should look after them in a special way. The answer to the question of how to clean gold with stones does not have a clear answer. Each pebble needs its own approach.

Earrings with pearls should not be placed in a solution containing ammonia, or cleaned with vinegar. Also prohibited are any abrasive products. Despite the fact that ammonia effectively cleanses gold from darkening, it is contraindicated for pearls. Therefore, if it is decided to clean gold with ammonia, you need to make sure that it does not hit the stone. And the pearls themselves are perfectly cleaned with a soap solution. The same applies to coral, turquoise.

Diamonds, cubic zirconias, zircons are not afraid of ammonia. On the contrary, cleaning gold at home using these solutions can give jewelry a shine and restore its original appeal. Not only gold is refreshed, but also stones, and it is safe for the latter. However, as noted above, if the stones are only glued to the decoration without additional fastenings, it is not recommended to soak them and wash them. It will be enough to treat the product with a cloth moistened in the prepared solution.

When wondering how to clean gold jewelry with stones at home, you can be guided by the Mohs scale. This is a mineralogical scale showing the degree of hardness of a particular stone, its resistance to scratching. For example, the pearls and corals discussed above have a Mohs number of 3-4, while diamonds (or diamonds, when it comes to faceted stones) are 10. That is, the lower the stone index, the more carefully you should look after it. Moreover, this concerns how to clean gold with stones, and how to wear such jewelry.

Diamonds and gold jewelry have been the girls' permanent friends for many centuries. But in the literal sense of the word, a woman will shine only when the jewelry complementing her image sparkles and plays. Now you know how to clean a gold ring, earrings or chain and polish them to a shine. Any of the tools described are available, but the methods are quite simple. The main thing is not to be lazy, and then the "best friends" will reciprocate: they emphasize femininity or confirm the status of the owner.