How To Clean Gemstones

Gemstones are definitely my favorite piece of jewelry. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in a ring, necklace, earrings, anklet, whatever. I think gemstones are the most beautiful thing! However, there is one huge negative about gemstones and that’s how easily they get dirty. They are literally an oil magnet. The slightest touch to anything that has the smallest amount of oil on it and that’s it, it’ll look like it hasn’t been cleaned in years. Thankfully, there’s a very simple and affordable way to clean your gemstones at home that takes almost no time at all.
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It’s a shame that I’m sharing this picture because it totally takes away from how stunning my engagement ring really is. But this photo is the truth. This is what my ring looks like almost half the time I wear it, unfortunately. Especially with my oily self, all I have to do is touch any part of my skin and the aquamarine starts to look like an opal. I typically clean my ring every other week, but sometimes it does need to be done every week depending on what I’m doing.
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All you’ll need for this is:

~a soft bristle toothbrush
~a small bowl full of warm water
~gentle dishwashing soap
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The first thing you want to do is set your ring in a bowl of hot water and let it soak for about five minutes. This will help loosen up all the dirt and oils so they scrub off easier. If my ring’s more dirty than usual, sometimes I’ll freshen up the hot water and let it soak twice...or if I happen to forget about it after the five minutes, which happens more often than not.
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After it’s soaked for the five minutes, take a tiny amount of the dishwashing soap on the soft bristled toothbrush and scrub over the bowl of water for two minutes. Scrubbing over the bowl is important not only if you drop the ring, but if anything were to fall out of it then it’d be easy to find. Once I scrub for two minutes, I rinse both the ring and the brush and repeat the process for another two minutes. If yours has a basket underneath, like mine, make sure to focus a lot of your scrubbing in that area because that’s really where the oils can collect. There’s nothing worse than finishing up and then realizing you missed a spot. So scrub good! Gentle, but good.
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Once you’re done scrubbing and finish rinsing the ring, dry it off with a paper towel. You want to make sure you’re using a paper towel instead of anything else because it won’t leave behind any dusties that might make the ring look dirty again. You can also shake it gently to get the water out from the underneath basket. Then I dry mine with my blow dryer. I use the hot setting on high to blast away all the water droplets and prevent them from leaving behind any water marks. Hitting it with such hot heat will also help to sparkle even more by clarifying, something SamNSue do to all of their rings and why we were so drawn to purchasing from them. -- Not sponsored, btw. I just really love what they do ;)
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Then that’s it! The ring is all clean and ready to go. Below you’ll see some pictures from different angles in the same light as the before picture, as well as outside light, so you can see how really clean the ring actually is. So sparkly! I do love my camera, but pictures still don’t do it justice.
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This also works with earrings or any other gemstone piece you want to clean. I had a pair of morganite and rose gold earrings that were looking less than pretty after a few years of wear. I honestly haven’t even cleaned them since the day I got them and started rarely ever wearing them anymore because of how dirty they were. That is about to come to an end!
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I am so happy with how clean they are now. They really haven’t sparkled like this since the day I got them and I could kick myself for how long it’s taken me to get around to cleaning them. So embarrassing. But now they’re good as new and I’m ready to rock these babies every day!
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This cleaning method seriously could not be any easier and the best part about it is that you know what products you’re using, unlike pre-made cleaners. It works so good that I’ve even switched out the soap at my kitchen sink to use the dishwashing soap on my hands too so the ring can get a quick cleaning every day!

If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. Do you have any jewelry cleaning hacks? I’d love to hear them!
~Christina~

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