Your Summertime Jewelry Care List
Summer’s Coming and Danger May Lurk for Your Favorite Ring
As your Santa Barbara Jeweler, who does your jewelry repairs, you know I’ll never give you a hard time for playing rough with your jewelry. I want you to wear it and love it.
My motto is “Wear it, Don’t Warehouse it!” But it never hurts to know where danger can lurk for your beloved jewelry playthings.
My Mentor Makes a List
Jeweler and Author Antionette Matlins, whom I’m a student of and a big fan of, came up with this list of things to beware of on behalf of your jewelry and I share it with you here:
Five Tips for Protecting Your Jewelry This Summer
1. Beware of chlorinated swimming pools.Chlorine can damage or destroy many types of fine jewelry. It can dissolve the surface of beautiful beads; attack the alloy in precious metals; remove the polish from many stones, such as malachite or turquoise.
2. Don’t wear rings in cold water.The cold temperature of the water in pools, oceans, lakes and rivers causes your finger size to shrink temporarily. When this happens, rings become too large and, aided by the movement of your hands as you swim or play, can easily slip off the finger without your being aware of it.
3. Check mounting to make sure stones are secure in their settings.Active sports are very popular in the summer. If a stone is loose in the setting, it may fall out during sports activities and break or become chipped or cracked.
4. Don’t wear your fine jewelry while gardening.Many fine gemstones have been lost or badly damaged while the wearer was gardening. Gold and platinum settings can be badly scratched or gouged by rocks and tools. Even a diamond can chip or crack when hit on a rock or tool because although it is very hard, it is also brittle and thin edges and points at the corners of a stone are vulnerable (for example, a princess-cut comes to a point at each of its four corners).
5. Is your watch waterproof or water resistant?Many expensive watches are ruined when people do not understand the significant difference between “waterproof” and “water resistant.” Do you know the difference?
More From the Mind Of Antoinette
Many more tips can be found in Ms. Matlins’ books Diamonds: The Antoinette Matlins Buying Guide—How to Select, Buy, Care for & Enjoy Diamonds with Confidence and Knowledge and Colored Gemstones: The Antoinette Matlins Buying Guide—How to Select, Buy, Care for & Enjoy Sapphires, Emeralds, Rubies and Other Colored Gems with Confidence and Knowledge.
Thanks, Calla, for making your readers aware of these tips. You have no idea how many calls I get each summer from people who’ve damaged or lost jewelry, especially while swimming in cold water ponds, lakes or oceans — everything from mens’ wedding bands to engagement rings. So another tip might be to take a metal detector with you to the beach! In all seriousness, summer poses hidden risks so I’m glad to see these tips. It also occurred to me that people travel during summer months and I want to add an important additional tip: Do NOT put your… Read more »
Antoinette,
Thank you so much for your great additional Summer Jewelry advice! I didn’t know about the in-room safe problem and will pass that on.
You cracked me up about the metal detectors. But it’s true they’d probably find lost jewelry!
Calla
Calla, thank you so much for this blog! I love reading about and seeing pictures of exquisite jewelry. I really enjoyed the tips by Antoinette Matlins.
Jennifer, thank you for visiting. I’ll have more tips in the future from the wonderfully knowledgeable Ms. Matlins. And in the meantime more exquisite jewelry will be shown.
Calla