Caring For Your Silver Jewellery

Caring for your sterling and fine silver jewellery

Sterling silver is an alloy made up of silver and other elements, usually copper. The 925 that people mention when they say 925 sterling silver means that there is 925 parts per 1000 of silver and 75 parts the other elements. It’s the other elements e.g. copper that can cause your jewellery to tarnish.

Fine silver is 99.9% silver. So for every 1000 parts, 999 are pure silver and the remaining 0.1% is trace impurities. Fine silver has less copper content than traditional sterling silver, so is slower to tarnish.

Tarnishing is a normal chemical reaction. Silver reacts to sulphur and oxygen and the metal then undergoes a process known as oxidisation. This oxidisation or tarnishing is what can make the metal discolour and become yellow initially and then black. Sulphur is not only in the air but is also produced by our bodies, so it can be transferred from our skin on to our beautiful jewellery.

The environment our jewellery is kept in may also have an impact on the speed of tarnishing. Salty air, humidity, perspiration, cosmetics, bleach and chlorine will all cause tarnishing.

Ideally you should store your jewellery away from the elements in in something like an airtight ziplock bag. You can buy anti tarnish papers which can be cut to size and stored inside the bag containing your jewellery. These papers will absorb the sulphides and other elements that cause the tarnishing and last up to six months.

Keep your jewellery away from things such as cleaning products as these will increase the rate of tarnishing. If using things such as hand sanitiser, this can have a big impact on tarnishing, so try to remove your jewellery before use. The same goes for hand creams and moisturisers they can also contain acids and oils that will speed up tarnishing.

Try to remember to apply your creams, perfumes, moisturisers and hairspray before putting your jewellery on.

If your jewellery does tarnish, you can use a silver polishing cloth that is impregnated with a cleaning and anti tarnish agent. Gently rub your jewellery with the cloth and the tarnish will come off on the cloth. You can keep using the cloths until there isn’t a clean space on them and then discard them. Don’t put them in the washing machine because as you will remove the cleaning agents from them and they won’t work.

Remember, jewellery should be the last thing you put on and the first thing you take off.