Jewelry, including gold, gets dirty when worn. The appearance spoils, the plaque makes it dull and unattractive. In people with sensitive skin, contaminated earrings can cause inflammation, not to mention piercing earrings. Keeping jewelry in a clean condition will help clean gold at home.
Dust and common dirt are easily removed, but there are areas that are almost not washed with soap and water. Such contamination comes from the oxidation of metals that make up jewelry alloy. After all, any piece of jewelry is made not of pure gold, but of its alloy, since the gold itself is too soft and very quickly damaged and frayed. To give the necessary strength, “base metals”, such as nickel, copper and zinc, are added to the alloy. Therefore, in order to clean gold at home, you need to know that it is not gold itself that is oxidized, but those metals that are contained in the jewelry alloy. The lower the sample product, the more impurities are in the alloy. For example, a 585 sample means that 1 gram of such an alloy contains only 585 mg of gold, and the rest is other metals.
Not being a professional, you will not be able to determine what dirt is on the surface of the product, the more you can see many small areas affected by oxidation that can be seen only at high magnification. Therefore, it is better to clean gold at home in stages.
Simple wash.
Dissolve any detergent (shampoo, soap, detergent, liquid detergent) in hot water with a temperature above 50 degrees. In this solution you need to lower the gold items. Soak for 1-2 hours. Decontaminated dirt needs to be cleaned with a toothbrush. If you start washing immediately, hard-to-reach areas will not be cleaned. These are the inner sides of the fasteners, the fastening of stones, grooves, recesses, cogs and more. When soaked, they become sour and easily removed with soft bristles without damaging the jewelry. After this, rinse it with running water and dry it. This gold cleaning at home allows you to keep your favorite jewelry clean. If after such cleaning the product remains dull, then proceed to the second stage.
Chemical cleaning.
To remove oxidized elements located on the surface of the gold jewelry, an ammonia solution is used. When interacting with silver and copper oxides, ammonia causes the formation of new compounds: ammonia, which is readily soluble in water. Such purification of gold at home is carried out in an aqueous solution of ammonia with a concentration of at least 25%. Products are immersed in this solution for 2-3 hours, if desired, they can be left there overnight. At the end, gold items are washed with water and dried.
Mechanical cleaning.
Such a cleaning of gold at home is required if neither the first nor the second stages of cleaning have helped. Sometimes sulfide formations that ammonia cannot dissolve can appear on the surface of products. They give the surface of the gold alloy a black color. For mechanical cleaning of gold jewelry, abrasive materials are used. However, not ordinary, but special. There are special cleaning pastes for cleaning gold jewelry. They are made on the basis of vegetable oil, petroleum jelly or soapy water. Various powders are added to the base, for example, chalk, white magnesia, corundum and others. The paste is taken with a soft brush or rags and applied to the surface, gently rubbing it from dirt. After cleaning with a dry soft cloth, remove the remaining paste and wipe the product with ethanol, possibly vodka. Then it is washed with water and dried.