How to Clean Your Jewelry for Summer

It is the last Saturday morning in May and the dish on the dresser has been emptied onto a clean white cloth. There are seven pieces of jewelry on the cloth, all of which have been worn in the last month, some of which have been worn every day. There is a small bowl of warm water on the dresser beside them, with a single drop of dish soap dissolved into it. There is a soft cotton cloth folded next to the bowl. The morning sun is the kind that makes the silver look slightly tarnished and the pearls look slightly dim, which is exactly the lighting under which a wearer should be looking at her pieces if she is planning to clean them. The pieces have been worn well and are ready for the summer. This is the practice I have come to think of as summer cleaning, which is the seasonal reset that happens once at the end of May and once at the end of August, when the pieces on the body need to be checked for the slight wear of the months and the pieces in the drawer need to be reconsidered for whether they want to come out. It takes about thirty minutes and costs nothing. It is one of the few rituals I have kept consistently through the last three years of moving and starting over, and it is the closest thing I have to a Saturday morning practice that does not involve coffee.

What is summer cleaning for jewelry?

Summer cleaning for jewelry is the seasonal practice of cleaning, checking, and resetting the pieces you wear before the months that put the most wear on them. It happens at the end of spring, takes about thirty minutes, and uses things already in the kitchen: warm water, a single drop of dish soap, a soft cotton cloth, and a small toothbrush with soft bristles. The summer months ahead will involve sweat, sunscreen, chlorine, and salt, all of which leave residue on jewelry. The summer cleaning is the reset before that begins. This is different from routine cleaning, which happens whenever a piece needs attention. Summer cleaning happens on a schedule. The wearer who does it in late May and late August will find that her pieces look brighter through the months ahead and require less emergency cleaning along the way. The practice is closer to a check than to a deep clean. The pieces are not in trouble; they are being looked at. Most jewelry survives summer perfectly well without any special intervention. The wearer who never thinks about her pieces and never cleans them will still have wearable pieces in September. The cleaning ritual is for the wearer who wants the pieces to look like themselves through the season, which is a slightly different goal. The longer reading on what tarnish actually is and why it is not a problem is in the brand's piece on why sterling silver tarnishes, which establishes the calm frame this ritual operates inside.

How do you clean sterling silver for summer?

You clean sterling silver for summer by gently washing each piece in warm soapy water, wiping dry with a soft cotton cloth, and using a small toothbrush with soft bristles to clear residue from chain links or detail areas. The whole process takes two to three minutes per piece. Do not use commercial silver polish; it is too abrasive for pieces worn daily. The kitchen method is gentler and works. The detailed method is straightforward: fill a small bowl with warm water and add one drop of unscented dish soap. Submerge the piece for about thirty seconds. Lift it out and work the soft toothbrush gently along any chain links or textured surfaces, paying particular attention to clasps where dirt accumulates. Rinse the piece under running water at room temperature, pat dry with the cotton cloth, and lay it on the cloth for about five minutes to dry. The chain that has tarnished slightly through the spring will not come fully back to its original brightness from this method. It will come back to about ninety percent of its original brightness, which is the right amount for a piece that has been worn daily and earned a slight patina. The wearer who wants the silver to look completely new is looking for the wrong outcome; the right outcome is the silver looking like itself, just slightly less dim than before the cleaning. For pieces with deeper tarnish, the longer reading is in the how to clean sterling silver at home without panic piece on the brand site. The summer cleaning method described here is the lighter version, designed for monthly or quarterly maintenance rather than for restoration. The pieces in the 925 Sterling Silver Collection were built for this kind of light maintenance, not for the heavy-handed restoration that most online guides recommend.

How do you clean pearls?

You clean pearls by wiping each pearl gently with a soft damp cloth, not by submerging them. Pearls are organic, and the silk thread the strand is strung on weakens when soaked. The method is to use a slightly damp cotton cloth, wipe each pearl one at a time, and then wipe the silk thread last with a dry cloth. The whole process takes about five minutes for a pearl strand. The pearl strand that has been worn through warm spring days does not need to be cleaned often. The natural oils on the skin that polish the surface during wear are also doing the work of keeping the pearl looking like itself. The summer cleaning for pearls is more of a check than a clean. The wearer looks at each pearl, wipes any visible residue, makes sure the silk thread between pearls has not started to fray, and puts the strand back in its dish. Pearls do not tolerate soap, ultrasonic cleaners, or soaking in water, even briefly. The strand that has been swum in chlorine, which should not have happened in the first place, may need to be examined by a jeweler. The strand that has been worn through ordinary summer days does not need anything more than the cloth and the check. The longer reading on pearl care is in the brand's pearl guide, which covers the full year of pearl maintenance. The instruction specific to summer is to do the gentle wipe at the end of each month and the careful check at the start of each season.

How do you clean stainless steel?

You clean stainless steel by wiping it with a damp cloth. That is the whole method. Stainless steel does not tarnish, does not react with sunscreen, and does not require special tools. The wearer who has been swimming in chlorinated water or working through a sweaty afternoon can rinse the piece under running water and wipe it dry. The piece will look like itself. This is the practical case for stainless steel as the summer daily material, and the reason the brand has been writing about it as the everyday tier of the Glass Balloon catalog. The pieces in stainless steel are the ones the wearer does not have to think about. The piece on the body at four in the afternoon, after a day of walking and sweating and reapplying sunscreen, is the same piece that was on the body at eight in the morning. No intervention required. For pieces with stones or pearls set in stainless steel, the cleaning method is slightly more careful: wipe the metal with a damp cloth and the stone or pearl with a dry cloth, separately. Do not soak the piece, and do not use soap. The combination of stainless steel and an organic stone calls for the lighter touch.

What about the pieces you are putting away?

The pieces being put away for summer are the heavy ones, the pieces with dark stones, the longer pendants, and any piece that has been doing winter work. These need a cleaning before storage, not after. The summer cleaning ritual includes both: the pieces being put away get the same gentle wash as the pieces being kept out, and they are stored dry, in soft pouches or in the original packaging, in a drawer that does not see direct sunlight. The reason to clean before storage rather than after is that any residue left on a piece will sit on it for months and may etch the metal. The piece coming out of storage in October that was put away dirty in May will have more wear than the piece that was cleaned in May. This is not a difficult standard to meet. The summer cleaning is the same gentle wash applied to all the pieces in the dish, whether they are being kept out or put away.

The pieces being kept out for summer are the lighter ones, the silver chains, the pearl strands, the stainless steel daily pieces, and the small charms. These return to the dish on the dresser, where they will be reached for each morning through the next three months. The dish itself can be wiped with the same cloth that was used on the pieces. There is something satisfying about doing it last, after the pieces have been laid out to dry. By eleven the dish is clean, the pieces are dry, and the cotton cloth has been folded and put back in the drawer where the bowl lives between cleanings. The pieces being put away have been moved to a soft pouch in the second drawer of the dresser. The pieces being kept out are back in the dish, in approximately the same arrangement they were in this morning before everything was emptied. The light through the window has shifted slightly toward noon. The silver looks brighter than it did at nine, and the pearls look like pearls again, which is to say they look like themselves, not new. The summer is not going to leave the pieces alone for the next three months. There will be sweat, there will be sunscreen, there will be afternoons where the chain catches a bit of saltwater at someone's beach house. The pieces will accumulate the small wear of the season the way the basil on the windowsill accumulates a slight dust on its leaves between watering, which is part of being alive and being used. The summer cleaning is the reset that allows the wear to begin again, fresh.