How to Keep Your Gold Locket As Good As New
Author: Vanessa Cooper
After going through all of the trouble of searching for and choosing the perfect gold locket, the last thing you want is to see it fall apart after a few short years. Gold, like anything else, must be properly maintained in order to keep its shine. Take care of your gold locket and it will be your faithful companion for all your life.
The Cause of Tarnish and Corrosion
Pure gold doesn’t tarnish, but most gold lockets out there aren’t made of the pure stuff (24k).
Anytime you see 10k, 14k, or 18k gold, it means that the gold has been alloyed with other metals. These other metals tend to react with the environment, whether oils in your skin or the very air around you. Corrosion is basically just another term for tarnish, but it means the same thing. The very world around you, 14k gold watch
, is trying to get at these other, 14k gold watch
, metals and turn them nasty greenish colors which certainly do not look attractive.
Some Easy Tips For Everyday
1) Make sure you keep your locket in a dry space when you’re not using it. This can be as simple as a soft cloth or as fancy as a specially designed pouch. So long as its dry it should be fine. So don’t be lazy! Keep your locket safe when it’s not around your neck.
2) Don’t let the locket stay wet. Definitely take the locket off when you take a shower or go swimming.
Common sense, I know, but still, you’d be surprised how many people forget. If the locket does get wet, dry it off right away so that the water doesn’t start, 14k gold watch
, to corrode the gold alloy!
3) Watch out for acidic fruits and vegetables. This, 14k gold watch
, one’s less obvious, but just as important. A lot of vegetables like onions have sulfur in them. Sulfur hates gold and your gold locket – keep it away! Acidic fruits are just as bad.
They’ll work away at those other metals in the gold alloy, causing tarnish much faster than other environmental causes.
Care Over Time
In the long run there are, 14k gold watch
, a couple of other things you can do to keep your gold locket it tip-top shape. You don’t need to do this everyday, just once in a while.
1) Polish the locket using a soft cloth. They sell special polishing cloths just for this purpose, but really anything soft will do just fine.
2) If things get bad, you can use a jewelery ultrasonic bath. This using high frequency sound waves to shake off any stubborn corrosion.
Be Vigilant!
In the end, constant vigilance will ensure that your gold locket always stays in the same great shape it was in when you first entrusted your memories to it.
Vanessa Cooper has been writing articles about gold jewelry maintenance and gold lockets for about a decade, always with the aim of getting people informed about keeping their valuables in near-perfect condition.
Source: ezinearticles.com