Cleaning Your Jewelry & Watches

Like your hands, your jewelry also gets exposed to germs frequently. After all, we consider jewelry and watches to be incredibly personal. Furthermore, jewelry owners typically wear their pieces daily. Whereas clothes, shoes and other apparel typically have a lifespan as well a cleaning regime. Jewelry typically can be overlooked and now with COVID-19 pandemic, personal sanitation is now more important than ever. Scientists believe the virus is transmitted via respiration. However, coronaviruses can still persist on surfaces. At Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers, we take great care in clients and their jewelry but also must take care of our employees and their families. We’ve developed some guidelines and tips for cleaning your jewelry.

Before cleaning your jewelry, wash your hands for at least 30 seconds with your jewelry removed.

Watches and Jewelry

***MAKE SURE THE CROWNS AND PUSHERS ARE TIGHTENED AND THAT YOU CHECK THE WATER RESISTANCE OF YOUR WATCH ***. This can be an expensive repair if you get water in your watch. Set up a bowl of clean, warm water and one of soapy water with a little antibacterial soap and dip the bracelet of the watch into the soapy water for about 20 seconds. With jewelry, you can drop the piece in fully. Gently scrub the bracelet and the case with a soft bristle toothbrush then dip it in the clean water to wrist and pat dry with a soft cloth. We like to top the process off with a polishing cloth to give the bracelet or silver jewelry its nice shine.

Cleaning Leather

Experts recommend lightly scrubbing leather with simple ivory soap and warm water then using a good leather clean and conditioner afterwards.

Cleaning Pearls (and Gemstones)

We recommend against directly putting hand-sanitizer and moisturizer on pearls, as with any organic gemstones. Gemologist have found that alcohol in sanitizer can damage surfaces of the porous stones. This is true with gemstones as well like opals and turquoise. What Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers recommend is using mild dish soap to make warm, soapy water and a soft bristle toothbrush to gently scrub any moisturizer, sanitizer, dirt, soap, bacterial away.

While this is a virus and most of these steps above work for anti-bacterial, anti-fungal protection. Additionally, we think that it is a good habit and it best to be safe than sorry.

At Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers, we will be disinfecting any jewelry that is brought in for repair for at least 48 hours before beginning repair. Furthermore, we are limiting the hours for our watch and goldsmith. We thank you for your patience and understanding.