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Gemstone Care - All You Needed to Know
By Gemexi Team | Gemology- Updated On Mar 17, 2020
Keep your jewelry clean! Don’t let the dirt remain on your precious stones! Let the shine of the gemstone brighten your life. You must have heard this advice from experts very often and have wondered how do I keep them clean? Your dilemma is not unfounded. Most people are equally clueless when it comes to keeping their jewelry clean, especially gemstones and precious stones. When you get a gemstone for therapeutic purposes, it is essential that you keep it clean. But how do you do it? You are most likely to think that since we are talking about precious stones, the cleansing methods would be complicated and difficult. You will be surprised to know that it’s quite contradictory! There are few simple tricks, like soaking in water, washing with salt and keeping under the sun that can easily cleanse precious stones.
Things To Remember While Cleaning Different Types of Gemstones
Though it is relatively easy to clean gemstones, there are certain guidelines you have to keep in mind. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that every kind of gemstone is vulnerable, even the hardest of rocks. The crystal structure can become weak or the corners may corrode off. Diamonds, which are known to be one of the hardest stones, can shatter with a single, hard blow.
One of the common cleaning methods is putting gems in an ultrasonic cleaner. Many precious stones may adversely react to ultrasonic rays. Stones such as turquoise, malachite, onyx and lapis should not be cleaned with using ultrasonic. (It is best to simply wipe these stones with a moist cloth). However, it is quite safe to put diamonds, rubies, and sapphires in ultrasonic cleaners. Organic gems such as coral, amber, and pearls need special care. You should be careful not to spray chemicals (of perfumes, hairsprays) on these gems.
A common mistake made by most of us is that we tend to put all our jewelry in a single box or drawer. You should stop doing this immediately as when the precious stones are continuously in contact with other gemstones, gold, silver, and platinum, they are more likely to get scratches.
How To Take Care of Different Gemstones
Below is a list of common gemstones and how to care for them. This list should be seen as a helpful checklist on how to care for precious gemstones.
Amber
Amber is famous because of its unique color. When you wear Amber, make sure not to expose it to chemicals, steam or ultrasonic cleaning.
Garnet
Garnet is found in crystal form and is highly regarded as a gemstone. It is important that any jewelry with garnet should not be exposed to sudden temperature changes.
Blue Topaz
Naturally found blue topaz is very rare. Thus what you get most commonly in the market is a colorless topaz that is heat treated and irradiated to produce the desired blue color. It is quite easy to maintain blue topaz and all you need to ensure is not exposed to sudden temperature changes.
Diamond
Surprisingly, as one of the costliest gems known to mankind, it is quite easy to care for diamonds. Apart from keeping it with other gemstones and not risking it to scratches and abrasives, you don’t need to do much to keep the diamond-bright and shining.
Pearl
Pearl is created by a living shelled mollusk and is composed of calcium carbonate in crystalline form. Pearls are also commonly bleached for bringing the consistent color. One of the essential things to remember while taking care of pearl is that the gem should not come in close contact with chemicals or ultrasonic cleaners.
Peridot
Peridot was earlier called Olivine and it is a yellowish-green gem. This gem is most commonly found and used in its natural form. However, you have to ensure that it doesn’t come in touch with steam or ultrasonic cleaners. The sudden temperature change can also adversely affect peridot.
Ruby
One of the brightest and most sought after gemstones in the world is ruby. To get the blood-red color of this precious stone, it is usually heat-treated. However, because of its unique nature, you don’t need to do anything special to take care of it.
Sapphire
It is called the gem of the sky, mainly due to its bright blue color. The color can be further enhanced by heat-treating it. You don’t need to do much to take care of this gem but you have to remember that it can break if struck by a hard object.
Tanzanite
Naturally formed tanzanite is extremely rare and hence it is regarded as a precious gemstone. Zoisite is commonly treated to produce the violet-blue color associated with tanzanite. If you have a Tanzanite, you should consider yourself extremely lucky and thus don’t expose it to heat or steam.
Emerald
The precious stone gets its color from the presence of chromium. Emerald is made of the mineral beryl. The gemstone is usually oiled to improve its color. You must not expose it to chemicals or steam.
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