Jewellery Care
We make collectable mixed metal jewellery in the bold scale of costume jewellery but with the quality, longevity, and versatility of fine.
Why Silver?
One of the origin stories for this combinatory style was an costume jewellery necklace Charlotte once owned. It was large and silver in colour and she wore it ALL THE TIME! This meant that quite quickly both the necklace and Charlotte's neck turned green. No longer able to wear it she had it cast in sterling silver and bought a new chain for it and the rest is history because silver, unlike the cheap mixed alloys in costume jewellery, can be endlessly cared for and revived.
How To Care For Silver
That said, you need to know what you are doing. All silver jewellery tarnishes over time unless it has been coated in an anti-tarnish coating. Anti-tarnish coatings can be great, but they are very hard to remove, and this presents its own set of issues including not being very ecological. To allow your jewellery to be cared for long-term and to respect the planet we therefore avoid such coatings.
To protect jewellery from tarnishing you need to do three things:
- When you are wearing your jewellery keep it as free as possible from coming into contact with soap, sunscreens and moisturisers, perfume and sweat. And if it does come into contact with any of these things, wipe it with a soft cloth as soon as possible.
- When you are not wearing your jewellery don't let it sit around in the open air. The best thing to do is keep it sealed in plastic - think Ziplock bags. We like to put this kind of resealable bag inside a pretty pouch and then it does double duty.
- If you do notice the jewellery is losing its shine, buff it up with a soft polishing cloth. It can be tempting to use a jewellery cleaner but these all contain differing chemicals and it's impossible to say which will be safest.
Ongoing Care Services
Eventually you may decide you'd like to have your jewellery re-polished and re-plated. We hope you do, because we hope you'll be wearing it for the rest of your life. If you'd like to discuss this service please email us with photographs of the items you'd like us to work on and we'll put a quote together. Doing this will ensure that your jewellery will last long into the future. Plus, as it hasn't been anti-tarnish coated, it could even be recycled one day into something entirely different rather than becoming landfill.