Support
Care
Gold is soft and the Gulf is hard on it — chlorine, salt, sunscreen and sand all do their share. Most of looking after a piece is knowing when to take it off.
Take it off for these
- The pool. Chlorine attacks the alloys in gold, not the pure gold itself, which is why an 18k claw fails before a 22k band does.
- The sea and the hammam. Salt and heat together are worse than either alone.
- The gym. A bar across a set ring bends claws faster than anything else we see at the bench.
- Sunscreen, hand cream and perfume. Put jewelry on last, after all of it has dried.
- Cleaning with bleach. It will pit the surface and there is no polishing that out.
Cleaning at home
Warm water, one drop of washing-up liquid, a soft toothbrush. Brush the back of the stones, where the film actually collects, then rinse and dry flat on a towel. That is the whole method and it works on gold and diamonds.
Do not use an ultrasonic cleaner at home. They are fine for diamonds and terrible for emeralds, pearls and anything with a hairline fracture you cannot see.
By material
Diamonds, lab-grown and mined
They attract grease, which is why a stone goes dull long before it is scratched. Soap and a brush every couple of weeks keeps them bright.
Emeralds
Almost every emerald on the market is oiled to fill surface fractures, ours included. Heat, solvents and ultrasonics drive the oil out and the stone goes cloudy. Wipe with a damp cloth, nothing more, and bring it to us once a year to be re-oiled at no charge.
Pearls
Wipe with a soft damp cloth after wearing. Never soak them — water travels down the drill hole and rots the silk from the inside. Store flat, not hanging, so the thread does not stretch. Re-knotting is AED 140 and worth doing every couple of years if you wear them often.
White gold
White gold is yellow gold alloyed pale and finished with rhodium. The rhodium wears through in eighteen months to three years depending on how you live. Re-plating is free once a year under the warranty.
22k
Purer, so softer, so it marks more easily. Those marks are the metal telling you it is real. A 22k bangle that still looks factory-new after five years is worth asking questions about.
Storing it
Separately. Diamonds scratch gold, and a tennis bracelet loose in a drawer with three chains will come out as one object. Use the pouch each piece arrived in, and keep chains fastened so they cannot knot.
Do not leave anything in a car in July.
Bring it in once a year
Free, whether or not anything is wrong. We check every claw under magnification, tighten what has moved, re-polish and re-plate. Ten minutes at the bench for a plain piece, a week if a tennis line needs a full re-tighten.
The single most common repair we do is a stone lost from a setting that had been loose for months. It is audible before it is visible — if a set piece rattles when you shake it gently by your ear, stop wearing it and bring it in.