How to Care for Your Vintage Jewellery Part 1: Keep It Dry

My colleague Tracey Ho Lung thought it would be a good idea to do a series of posts on the care and cleaning of jewellery. Since an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure, my first piece of advice is this:

Always remove your jewellery before you wash your hands, take a shower or go swimming.

Why? Soaps and detergents gunk up stones and settings. Moisture can get trapped in little nooks and crannies causing corrosion, rust and tarnish. Water in a watch can be ruinous. Chemicals in pool water can pit metal finishes. And finally, it’s really easy to lose a ring when your fingers are slippery.

Should you accidentally take a shower wearing, say, an Edwardian picture locket with original celluloid windows, what should you do? If a watch or other piece of jewellery with a compartment where water can get trapped and do some damage, try and dry it immediately. Here are two tips I’ve learned from vintage watch collectors.You know those little packets or cannisters of desiccant that come with vitamins, etc.? Save them up, place them in a little box and keep it on hand for drying out wet jewels. Alternatively, place the item on a bed of uncooked rice (rice draws in the humidity, which is why you sometimes see the little grains in restaurant salt shakers — it keeps the crystals from clumping).

For simpler jewelry dry outs, let the piece are dry overnight on a towel.