These silver care guidelines will hopefully help you understand how to keep your jewellery looking amazing.
Tarnish is the bane of both jewellery makers and jewellery lovers alike.
Read on to find out what tarnish is and why it affects silver the way it does.
When silver is new or freshly polished, it looks bright and shiny but over a period of months, that finish begins to slowly change from bright and shiny to first a light yellowing, then progressively to a deeper yellow to grey and eventually to a dark black colour/patina.
This coating that goes from light yellow to black is called tarnish and it occurs when silver comes in contact with items that contain hydrogen sulphide.
Hydrogen sulphide can be found in many items such as wool, fossil fuels, foods such as onions and eggs and materials such as rubber, paint and latex.
If you store or wear your jewellery in environments that contain a high concentration of these materials, or if you handle your jewellery after eating a meal that contains hydrogen sulphide, it’s likely that your jewellery will begin to tarnish.
Your climate also effects how fast and how badly your silver will tarnish, so if you live in a climate that has high humidity, your jewellery will tarnish much faster and more severely.
The sad truth is, that it’s the nature of silver to tarnish, but there are ways to either slow down the tarnishing process and ways to remove tarnish from your silver jewellery safely.
There are steps that can be taken to reduce the tarnishing effect.
Medications in the wearer’s system, especially certain antibiotics, can sometimes cause jewellery to blacken or discolour.
In some rare cases, the wearer’s basic body chemistry reacts to the silver and cause tarnishing.
There are number of products on the market that can remove tarnish. What you use is dependent on how
severe the tarnish is.
If the tarnishing is mild, mostly light yellow in colour, you can remove it by buffing it
out with a polishing cloth. Severe tarnish, that is dark grey or black colour, will require the use of some
chemical method.
There are many silver cleaning products readily available in supermarkets in the UK, such as Silvo tarnish guard or Goddard’s silver cleaner or the Town Talk silver products.
Tarnish is caused when silver comes in contact with hydrogen sulphide.
To minimize the possibility of exposure, wipe down your jewellery with the anti tarnish polishing cloth (supplied with your keepsake order), after you wear it.
This is especially important if you’ve done any cooking or intense physical activity while wearing your silver jewellery.
Store your silver in a cool, dry place like a well-lined jewellery box or velvet bag.
