Caring for your Jewellery

Wear & Care, not Wear and Tear

With wear and tear, enamel may crack, diamonds may chip, chain links may snap and the highly polished surfaces of precious metals used in men's jewellery may scratch, so we recommend the following precautions and care for your jewellery, so that wearing it becomes as bright and fulfilling as the day it was new.

Diamonds

A popular misconception is that diamonds cannot be chipped or broken, but sadly that is not true. The hardest of all natural minerals, diamonds are almost completely scratch proof, but that doesn't stop them chipping or cracking when hit. It's therefore a sensible precaution to remove diamond rings and other mens jewellery during sports activities, manual work as a sharp impact may result in the diamond breaking.

Platinum and Gold are very hardy metals able to uphold to the rigours of normal daily use, however even with careful wear will inevitably become tarnished with small scratches to the surface and tiny dents. With hard wear the jewellery may even misshapen. We recommend polishing with a soft cloth but it is not recommended to use a silver polishing cloth as they are generally impregnated with abrasive powder.

Silver

Pure Silver metal is too soft for making jewellery, therefore sterling silver 925 is mostly used. Sterling Silver is an alloy of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals and due to the presence of the base metals, may oxidise over time and become blackened, especially as they come into regular contact with natural acids in your skin.

The oxidised blackening normally stops of its own accord after a while and then with continued wear the oxidised layer will gradually wear off itself. In the meantime you can polish it with a silver polish cloth (available from Thorn Jewellery on request) and or use a silver dip solution. If it still continues to oxidise, a technique is to rhodium plate or pure silver-plate the item.

Special finishes

Matt finishes are temporary and produced by scratching or pitting the surface of a metal in a uniform way, and whether they start polished or matt, with normal wear men's rings will end up looking the same after several months. Items can be re-finished to bring them back to life, so please contact Thorn Jewellery for more information.

Rhodium, Gold, Platinum and Pure Silver plated finishes are created by a process of bonding a micron layer of the precious metal to a surface. All of these types of plating are susceptible to wear and tear and replating is an effective method of returning the item to its former beauty.

Cleaning of stone set jewellery

Your diamond and other hard stone jewellery should be soaked in hot soapy water for ten minutes and then cleaned with a soft toothbrush under warm running water. However, this is not the case with pearls, or any other porous stones, such as opal, lapis etc. These should instead be cleaned with a soft cloth and regularly re-oiled using natural oil. It is also advised that this group of gems are not left in strong sunlight for long periods of time as this can lead to drying out and cracking.

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