Keeping your wedding and engagement rings looking great now and for many years to come requires knowing how to properly care for them. Using these suggestions and tips will help you protect your investment and avoid accidental damage.
- Store Rings Properly: Store your rings in the original jewelry boxes. Some people make the mistake of placing their engagement and wedding rings in a jewelry box with their other jewelry whenever they are not wearing them, which can cause scratches on the rings.
- Handle Rings by the Band: Avoid handling the ring by the setting. The band on the ring is how you want to put the ring on or take it off. Touching and pulling on the setting can cause the stones to come loose, plus the oils in your fingers can accumulate around the stones.
- Professional Cleaning: Have your rings cleaned at least annually by a professional jeweler. While there are “at-home” ring cleaners, these may contain added abrasives that are not good for your rings. Rather, it is better to bring them into your local jeweler to have them detailed cleaned. Your jeweler will also look for signs of damage and lose stones at the same time.
- Metal-Specific Care: Different metals require different types of care. Depending on the type of metal used for the bands and settings on your engagement and wedding rings, it can require specific types of care. For instance, white gold, which is a rather popular band choice, require less frequent cleaning because this type of gold often has special plating used on the bands to give them their lustrous, white appearance.
- Protect from Household Chemicals: Avoid contact with household cleaners and chemicals. When doing dishes, cleaning, or using other types of household chemicals and cleaners, it is recommended to take your engagement and wedding rings off or use thick rubber gloves. The chemicals in various cleaners can damage your rings.
- Avoid Chlorine Exposure: Remove your rings before swimming or getting into a hot tub. The chlorine in pools and hot tubs can damage your rings, so it is best to remove them ahead of time.
- Limit Contact with Personal Care Products: Remove your rings before using personal care products. Before applying hand lotions, sunscreen, hair gels, and other such personal care products, it is best to take your rings to avoid buildup of the products in the setting and on the band.
- Wash Hands Before Wearing Rings: Always wash your hands before putting the rings back on. Whether you were cleaning, cooking, or doing some other task where you took the rings off, wash your hands with soap and water and dry them thoroughly before putting your rings back on.
For minor scratches and band discolourations, these can be corrected with help from your jeweler. In addition, if you notice some of the stones in the setting seem loose, stop wearing the ring until you can have it professionally repaired. Otherwise, you risk the stones falling out and getting lost.
For more tips on how to properly care for your engagement and wedding rings, or to have the rings cleaned or repaired, please feel free to stop by Serli & Siroan today or call us at 416-944-3863!
