Jewelry Cleaning At Home Part 1

Hello and welcome to Jewelry Tips at Home. I'm Colbi. I'm Brad and we are Bradley's Jewelers. We have been in business for, I don't even know how many years, and my husband is a Graduate Gemologist been doing this for 30 years. And we have found that people need to sparkle at home. We're all sheltering in place we're all quarantined and it's no fun for anyone. I know for me, I really need a haircut but I can't do that here. We won't talk about what I did with the shaver. But something you can do at home is you can clean your own jewelry. And it's actually a good idea for two reasons. Number one, for yourself; makes you feel good while you're home. And it can be a romantic thing with your husband, something fun y'all can do together. But the other thing is, if you do have some problems with your jewelry when the stores open back up, you may want to bring them in clean because you don't want to give your jeweler a biohazard.

What my wife is saying is that we read this article that said the average person's jewelry has been tested for virus and bacteria. Well, long story short, it's three times dirtier than a public toilet seat. So, we're here to do this as a PSA to teach you how to do it correctly to keep you safe for yourself and for everyone else that has to deal with your jewelry.

Yeah, so here we go. You're going to need a few things. Some gloves, a toothbrush, but not the kind that you put in your mouth, the kind you use for your laundry or something like that. You'll need some jewelry and we suggest you have some liquid soap. Whether it's hand soap or the kind you clean your dishes with in the sink. And rubbing alcohol; not that kind of alcohol, that's for entertainment purposes only.

Let's get busy here. Put on you gloves. We've already put in some rubbing alcohol. 70% isopropyl is what the CDC recommends. And we put some in our little ramekin, and we're going to take this rope chain that most people have some kind of chain.

And for safety and security I'm putting the plug in, just in case.

Good idea. Always put in a plug. If you don't have a plug you can makeshift one with a paper towel. Cover that hole. First thing you want to do, take some of your liquid soap and scrub out all of the nooks and crannies of your ring, your bracelet, your necklace, whatever it is.

And you gotta put some muscle into it. You really want to get in there and get all that matter out. And when you're done with that, dunk it in there. Drop it in the alcohol and let it sit for probably 5 minutes, and that way you know you're actually killing bacteria.

Now, you might wonder, can I clean everything with alcohol. No, this is for gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, sapphires; hard gems that have not been died or fracture filled or something porous like coral, pearls, you do not want to put pearls in alcohol. Now what you can do, is you can use your soap on those items but you can't put it in the alcohol. That's the next video, we're doing delicate gems next; that will be part two. But in the meantime after letting it sit you'll want to clean it again with the alcohol on it because you need to get into those crevasses, that is so important.

Yeah, the friction is absolutely necessary to get out especially with all these little nooks and crannies in there, you'd be surprised how dark it gets. You really would it's all about the crevasses in jewelry. And like I was saying earlier, when you look under a microscope which we do a lot in our business, the things we see under that microscope would blow your mind. So, we don't want to see those things right now especially after everyone has been dealing with the virus outside.

And if you want to enjoy your jewelry, which you do, you want to clean it and take care of it and make sure it's in good shape.

Now just in case you wanted to know, some of the gems on the list that are good in the alcohol. Things like rubies, sapphires, topaz, amethyst, citrine, peridot, quartz. So things of that nature. Tanzanite is another good one that you can use the alcohol with. You don't want to use the alcohol with your beautiful emeralds. Because emeralds are oiled stones and that can create a big problem. It will dry it out, there are just too many things, so if you have questions about it please feel free to call us as well.

That's true, feel free, we'd be glad to answer any questions. And if you do have questions, we can answer them in another video. Just call us or write it in. Yup, and our next video is going to be on delicate gems and stay tuned for that. Thank you so much! And I hope you enjoyed Jewelry Cleaning At Home.