Designer Necklace
3 Important Facts about your Designer Necklace.
You have just bought a beautiful, bespoke, Designer Necklace and you love it! … How can you look after it now so that it will last for years?
Metal tarnishes unless made of Gold, Platinum or it is Rhodium plated.
A Designer Necklace in silver, copper or brass will all oxidise, better known as tarnish. This patina can be added deliberately with chemicals and is used by a designer to enhance their jewellery design, adding texture and creating contrast in form. If your bespoke designer has added the patina deliberately, your silver will be black all over or black in recessed areas to emphasise the design.
However once you have bought you Designer Necklace slow down this natural process by storing it in an airtight container, box or plastic bag and by wearing your necklace often.
When tarnish happens it can look quite alarming as your lovely bright silver turns black in varying degrees, don’t panic. No need to return your beautiful necklace
There are several ways to clean your necklace but this depends on its surface texture and whether there are stones or pearls in the design.
- The easiest surface to clean is the highly polished. But this surface is the least hard wearing as it shows every scratch. Simply clean your Designer Necklace with an impregnated silver cloth or rub the surface with a metal polish until free of tarnish and polish thereafter with a soft cloth.
A quick fix for a shiny surface is to rub the surface with your fingers, if your jewellery is not too tarnished and this will make it shine.
- A matt, textured surface is best submerged in a good quality silver dip for 1min or until the tarnish has gone, do not leave it for too long as over soaking will cause it to blacken even more. Remove from the dip and rinse with soapy water, dry thoroughly.
To clean your jewellery when there are deliberate oxidised areas… paint the silver dip onto tarnished areas only, avoid the oxide as the dip will remove it also, rinse and dry
PLEASE NOTE pearls and porous stones should not be put into the dip, use the paint brush technique and clean around them.
- A matt satin finished Designer Necklace, when you don’t have silver dip or there are stones, can be easily cleaned by using a little trick of mine…Take a clean white rubber, a smaller piece can be cut from it if necessary, and rub it over the surface to erase the tarnish. Wash and Dry- Quick, easy and effective
Enjoy wearing your Designer Necklace, look after it and it will give you years of pleasure.
Contact us today at helen@hswanjewellery.co.uk