Antique Jewelry
We love our precious vintage antique jewelry and we want to preserve its beauty the best we can so that we can pass down to the next generation to enjoy. I would like to devote this page to talk about how to take good care of your vintage costume antique jewelry.
Here are a few things we should do and remember with antique jewelry:
- Put your vintage costume jewel in a soft zipped up pouch so that the dust won’t easily get to it. The silk gift pouch is a good example because it has a zipper. It is soft and the inside is lined.
- Dust is abrasive to your jewels and weather elements cause deterioration. Store your vintage jewelry in a dry, cool and dust-free environment. Ideally in a fire proof safe.
- Despite your efforts, dust will sooner or later find its way to your beloved jewels. Therefore, you’ll need to do some slight cleaning from time to time. Here are some cleaning tips:
- Use Windex or similar products as a cleaning agent. Mild soapy water is also okay. However, please remember do not spray the Windex directly to your jewel or submerge the piece into soapy water or a running faucet. Rhinestone jewelry with foil backing should never be submerged into water.
- Spray a little of the Windex onto a soft clean cloth. Make sure that it is not too wet, just barely enough to get the dust off the piece. For the hard to get to places, use a soft tooth brush or Q-tip with tiny little bit of Windex. Squeeze the excess wetness off the Q-tip or soft toothbrush so that it is barely damp.
- Make sure that you are gentle when cleaning your jewelry. If you use a toothbrush, make sure that it is soft and not scratchy. Be particularly careful with Aurora Borealis stones as they can be scratched easily.
- After you clean your jewels, leave them out for at least an hour. Make sure that they are completely dry before you put them away. This is very important because moisture causes deterioration to your jewels.