• How a Professional Cleans your Jewellery
• How to Safely Clean your Jewellery at Home

A jeweller would clean your jewellery with a polisher, an ultrasonic cleaner and a steamer.

Polishing
When polishing your jewellery, two steps are used depending on how badly it's scratched. Polishing compounds are applied to buffs on a polishing machine.

A first step for badly scratched jewellery is polishing with tripoli. Tripoli is a grease-based compound that comes in cake form and contains a microscopic abrasive. There are several types of tripoli, some greaser than others, and some more aggressive than others. Brown tripoli is greasier than White Diamond and Grey Star; Grey Star is more aggressive than brown tripoli, which is more aggressive than White Diamond. Your jeweller will have a preference for which tripoli to use based on personal experience. Ask three jewellers which tripoli is best and you could easily get three different answers.

A second step is polishing your jewellery with rouge, after it has been polished with tripoli or if it is not badly scratched. Rouge is a clay-based compound that comes in cake form in a variety of colours and contains no abrasive. Polishing with rouge does two things. It burnishes the metal (pushes it around to bring up a mirror-bright finish) and imparts a luster which is depends on the rouge colour. Red and green rouge are the most commonly used, but blue, black, yellow, and white are also used, depending on the metal being polished and the luster desired. Again, the choice of rouge tends to be a personal preference of the jeweller.

Several polishing compounds will remove minor scratches and work your jewellery to a mirror-bright finish, such as Fabulustre and Dialux (a French rouge product)

Tripoli and rouge are used to polish precious metals, not gemstones. There are exceptions of course. A rouge called Zam is specially formulated to polish both silver and turquoise.

Polishing out scratches in gemstones with special compounds is frequently considered a specialized task that most jewellers will arrange to have done by others.

See our Polishing page for related products.

Ultrasonic Cleaning

Ultrasonic cleaners remove tripoli, rouge, the associated greases, grime and soil from the tiniest and deepest recesses of your jewellery. An ultrasonic uses high frequency sound waves in water to clean your jewellery very effectively. These tiny sound waves create cavitation - microscopic bubbles which collapse into themselves around the jewellery surfaces. This creates a vacuum effect which pulls debris, foreign particles and other contaminants away the interior and exterior surfaces. It is reported that ultrasonic cleaning is 16 times more effective than manual methods.

Ultrasonic cleaning takes 5 to 20 minutes and works most efficiently when warm water and special cleaning solutions are used.

If your jewellery does not require polishing, a jeweller will simply clean the items with an ultrasonic to remove the dirt and grime that has accumulated. Special Precautions must be used for Gemstones - some gemstones are quite delicate and can be severely damaged in an ultrasonic.

Ionic cleaners and Sonic cleaners do not work as effectively as ultrasonic cleaners, but they are safe for all gemstones.

See our Ultrasonic page for related products.

Steam Cleaning

The final step is cleaning your jewellery with a steamer to remove the film of detergent remaining from any of the above cleaners. A professional steam cleaning machine is much like the steamer on a cappuccino machine - it produces a jet of pressurized steam (30-50 psi and even as high as 150 psi).

See our Steamer page for related products.

Cautions for Cleaning Gemstones

Special care must be taken when cleaning jewellery with gemstones - some gemstones are quite delicate (eg. opals, coral, pearls, amber) and can be damaged with conventional cleaning processes. Refer to the table Guidelines for Cleaning Gemstones when using ultrasonic and steam cleaners.

The reaction of a gemstone to ultrasonic cleaning varies depending on the inclusions in the stone, the solution used in the ultrasonic, and the amount of time the stone remains in the ultrasonic.

All stones are at risk of thermal shock if taken from the steamer and placed directly in the ultrasonic or water before they have sufficiently cooled.

Caution is advised with solvents and other chemicals, including ammonia, which is a common constituent of most household cleaners. Boiling (sometimes used) is not recommended for any stone except diamond, and only for diamond when absolutely necessary and proper procedures are followed.

Almost every cleaning step used by a jeweller can be safely mimicked at home with a few inexpensive supplies. You can also clean lightly soiled jewellery with special cloths or liquid jewellery cleaners. 

Polishing

Rouge Cloth
A rouge cloth may be used to polish precious metals to a mirror-bright finish. Rouge cloths have two parts, one which is impregnated with red rouge. Use the red part to burnish your items to a bright finish - it is messy. If you give your fingers and thumbs a good workout, the cloth works quite well. Clean off most of the rouge with the part of the cloth that is not treated with rouge.

You don't wash these cloth - use them till they are useless rags. Don't use the cloth on your gemstones!

If your jewellery is heavily scratched, take it to a jeweller who will polish it with tripoli to remove the scratches.

Silver Polish

Silver polish is available from several manufacturers - Hagerty is a well known and popular brand name. For sterling silver that is heavily tarnished and silver flatware, these polishes are recommended. The polish is rubbed onto the silver, left to dry, then rinsed off or wiped off with a dry soft cloth or tissue. Some polishes contain a silver anti-tarnishing agent.

Don't use these polishes on your gemstones! Gold does not tarnish like silver, but you won't harm your gold jewellery with a silver polish.

Ultrasonic Cleaning

Small ultrasonic cleaners are available for home use at less than $200 Canadian. It costs more to get one with a heater. An ultrasonic denture cleaner is the same thing, just labeled for a specific purpose. Special Precautions must be used for Gemstones - some gemstones are quite delicate and can be severely damaged in an ultrasonic.

If you have a large collection of diamond jewellery, you might consider purchasing a small professional ultrasonic cleaner with timer and heater.

Ultrasonic cleaners work best with water heated to about 140 degrees F. If your cleaner does not have a heater, use water from your hot tap.

Special concentrated cleaning solutions are available, some with ammonia. Ammonia increases the effectiveness of ultrasonic cleaning, but voids the warranty on ultrasonics with stainless steel tanks. Dilute these solutions according to instructions. If you don't have immediate access to the special ultrasonic cleaning solutions, use a few cap fulls of Mr. Clean. Do not use anything that contains bleach - the chlorine will harm your jewellery and gemstones.

As an Aside: Chlorine is very bad to gold and silver jewellery. In fact, chlorine ions are used to refine gold and silver. The first step in refining these metals from scrap jewellery is dissolving the gold and silver with aqua regia (royal water) - a mixture two acids. The chorine ions in aqua regia dissolve the gold and silver completely into solution! This is why wearing jewellery in the swimming pool is not recommended, and why you should remove your jewellery or wear rubber gloves when using household cleaning products.

WARNING: Do not put fingers and hands into the water of an ultrasonic cleaner while it is operating. The high frequency sound waves can damage tissue and tendons. Embolisms have also been reported - small bubbles in the blood stream which can restrict or stop the flow of blood.

Sonic and Ionic Cleaning

Ionic cleaners and Sonic cleaners do not work as effectively as ultrasonic cleaners, but they are safe for all gemstones.

An ionic cleaner will electroclean your jewellery, which is the same thing done to a piece of jewellery before it is electroplated to make sure that it is absolutely clean so the plated metal will firmly adhere. 

A sonic cleaner is actually mis-named and has nothing to do with sonics or ultrasonics, and therefore, it is safe for all gemstones. A sonic cleaner vibrates a jewellery cleaning solution to increase its effectiveness. The only caution required is in the choice of cleaning solution, because solvents can harm your gemstones.

Small ionic cleaners and special cleaning solutions are recommended. They work, but are not overly popular.

Sonic cleaners are the best option for home use, particularly if you have many different gemstones in your collection. Hagerty and Connoisseurs make several models. Cleaning concentrates are available in two formulas (1) regular formula for gold, diamonds and other precious metals and stubborn soil, and (2) delicate formula for pearls, and other semi-precious stones and light soil.

Steam Cleaning

Professional steamers cost between $600 and $2500 dollars. You don't need one at home. After the above cleaning, simply rinse your jewellery in warm water to remove the film left by the cleaning solutions.

If you really think you need to, steam clean your jewellery with the steamer on a cappuccino machine. Special Precautions must be used for Gemstones and be careful not to burn yourself. Hold the jewellery with long rubber coated tweezers or chopsticks so you don't scratch the jewellery.

Put the final shine on your jewellery with a dry lint-free cloth, such as a Selvyt Cloth. 

Quickly Clean your Jewellery

Treated cloths and liquid jewellery cleaners are available to clean lightly tarnished sterling silver and soiled jewellery.

Brilliant Jewellery Cloth
A Brilliant cloth works well for all precious metals, including gold, silver, nickel, stainless steel and chrome. It does not burnish the metal like a rouge cloth, but it leaves a beautiful shine without liquids or paste and an undetectable residue which is particularly good for reducing tarnish on sterling silver jewellery.

You don't wash the Brilliant Jewellery Cloth - use it until completely soiled. Don't use the cloth on your gemstones! 

Disposable Jewellery Wipes
Fast 'n Clean Wipes are disposable silver and jewellery wipes. They are pre-moistened with silver polish and work well on heavily tarnished sterling silver jewellery. They do not contain an anti-tarnishing agent.

Connoisseurs Jewelry Wipes are dry disposable wipes that work well on sterling silver and gold jewellery. They contain an anti-tarnishing agent for silver. These wipes do the same thing as the Brilliant cloth and since they are disposable you won't be reaching for a ratty old, dirty-looking cloth when cleaning your jewellery.

Untreated Jewellery Cloths
Almost any soft, lint-free cloth is good for cleaning your diamonds and gemstones and putting a final shine on jewellery after cleaning. Use them without liquids or polish. Chamois also work well.

Selvyt cloths are a brand name English-made cloth that is very popular with jewellery retailers. It has a soft, velvety, no-lint texture that polishes delicate surfaces without scratching and can also be used on eyeglasses. It retains its softness after repeated washings. They are sometimes called Diamond Cloths. 

Jewellery Dips

Several jewellery dips are available in small containers for home use. They come with little baskets in the container for ease of use. Hagerty and Connoisseurs are popular brand names. Most of these products contain mild acid solutions, so they must be kept out of reach of children and pets. Some products from the State of California include warnings about cancer causing agents.

There are three types of products available:

• Jewellery Cleaner - for gold, diamonds and other precious metals and stubborn soil.
• Silver Cleaner - for removing tarnish and dirt from sterling silver.
• Pearl Cleaner - cleans dirt and film from pearls and strands without ammonia, dyes, detergents and other harsh ingredients. Also good for opals, and other delicate, semi-precious and porous gemstones.

These liquid cleaners can be used in sonic cleaners to improve their cleaning effectiveness.