How to Clean Gold Jewelry, According to a Professional Jeweler

The expert tells us that cleaning gold jewelry is exceedingly simple and no special materials are required, except a soft, lint-free cloth (i.e., microfiber cloth). The most important thing is to keep chemicals out of the equation and avoid abrasive cleaning cloths so as not to scratch the surface of the jewelry. Here’s how to restore your shiny gold jewelry in three easy steps.

1. Fill a bowl with water. Warm water is best and it’s all you need. However, Kelly says if you really feel compelled to add something to the water, a drop of mild dish soap is acceptable.
2. Submerge the gold jewelry in the water. This one’s pretty straightforward. Give your gold a nice little bath. If the jewelry has a lot of hard to reach places, you can use a Q-tip or cotton ball to get into the cracks and crevices.
3. Remove the jewelry from the water and dry it with a soft, microfiber cloth. Use the cloth to gently polish the jewelry as you dry it…and ta-da, you’re done!

Per the expert, there’s no hard and fast rule as to how often you should clean gold jewelry. For starters, it depends on how often you wear it. The best rule of thumb is simply to polish up your gold jewelry following the steps described above whenever it starts to look lackluster and avoiding certain things that are likely to make it need more frequent cleaning (but more on that below).

Kelly tells us that there are quite a few things you can do—or not do, as it were—to keep your gold jewelry sparkling clean and in good condition. Here are her key tips:

• When not being worn, store your gold jewelry in an airtight container in a dark place. (If the jewelry came with a pouch, you should use it, or just invest in a jewelry box.) “Solid gold should be OK in direct sunlight but any gold plated jewelry is likely to tarnish if exposed for long periods of time,” explains Kelly.
  
• Never use harsh chemicals to clean gold jewelry. “If you want to use anything apart from a lint-free polishing cloth, I would only recommend water.” Roger that.
  
• Kelly acknowledges that this final tip is a pretty unpopular one, but when it comes to gold jewelry you really care about it’s important: “never put jewelry over lotions such as sun lotion or body lotion and don’t spray perfumes near them either.” As such, the expert generally recommends you avoid wearing jewelry in the shower or at the beach, where it's most likely to come into contact with soaps and lotions.

According to Kelly, gold jewelry is very durable, so if the piece in question is starting to look particularly worn out or tarnished, there’s a good chance it’s only gold-plated. Solid gold jewelry will rarely, if ever, require a professional cleaning; gold-plated jewelry, on the other hand, can be restored to its former glory by a professional if it starts to show any signs of discoloration.