Many households have gold jewellery or other pieces of this precious metal that have lost their lustre over the years. Gold hardly oxidises, but dirt accumulated through contact with skin and cosmetics can spoil its appearance. We explain how to clean and care for your gold jewellery with natural products.

Gold can lose its natural shine through contact with the pH of our skin or through reactions with liquid substances, such as chlorine from swimming pools or other harmful agents. To maintain the splendour of gold pieces, it is recommended to clean them with a white cotton cloth, as jewellers do when handling them, thus avoiding that contact with the skin detracts from their shine. There are many traditional, natural and effective ways to clean your gold pieces. Here are some of the classic tricks to bring back the shine to this precious metal:

Cleaning with soap

• Mix a few drops of mild dishwashing liquid with warm water in a bowl.
• Immerse the gold piece in the container for about fifteen minutes once the mixture is ready. You will see that the impurities will descale by themselves.
• Remove the gold piece from the container and rinse it with warm water.
• Dry it thoroughly with a soft cloth.
• Repeat this process as many times as you think necessary.

Bring back the shine with vinegar

• Mix ½ cup of white vinegar and 2 tablespoons of baking soda in a bowl.
• Soak gold pieces that are dirty or have lost their shine for two hours.
• Rinse the gold jewellery with cold water and dry it with a soft cloth. A chamois cloth can also be used.

Preserving the shine with baking soda

• Mix three tablespoons of baking soda in a bowl with a cm of warm water. Stir until a consistent mixture is formed.
• Apply this mixture to the gold pieces you want to clean.
• Once the mixture has been applied to the jewellery, add a little vinegar to activate the effervescence that will loosen the dirt from the jewellery.
• Wait a few minutes and remove the mixture
• Rinse with plenty of lukewarm water, and dry the gold pieces carefully with a soft cloth.

White or matt-finished gold

In case you have a white gold or matt-finished gold piece, you have to avoid using a chamois cloth to polish it. White gold consists of an alloy of pure, yellowish gold and whitish precious metals such as platinum, nickel, etc., to which rhodium plating is added. Therefore, by cleaning these pieces with a chamois cloth, you could remove the rhodium plating or get an unwanted shine on a matte-finished piece.

Keep gold with gold, don’t mix precious metals

To preserve the shine of your gold pieces and jewellery, do not store them together with other jewellery or pieces in silver or another metal. Store and classify your valuables according to the composition of the metal: gold with gold, platinum with platinum… You will prevent the gold or other metals from darkening, and you will also preserve them better, with all their shine.

Gold bullion and collector coins

Gold bars, such as the ones you can buy with Preciosos 11Onze, usually come sealed or packaged in a heat-sealed blister with a code certifying their origin and authenticity. This is done to certify and preserve their value, both when you buy them and when you sell them. Although it may be tempting to break the blister to touch the piece with your hands, it is not recommended.

Gold coins purchased as an investment also come packaged but rarely sealed. Even so, it is not advisable to handle them because of the possible contamination of the piece and the risk of damaging the coin when cleaning it. In addition, it should be borne in mind that collector coins, especially old coins, can lose much of their value if they lose their original patina through the cleaning process.

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