Sustainability Tips: Taking Care of Jewelry
You care about sustainability of your products, and that shouldn't end with purchasing wonderfully fair trade pieces like Fair Anita’s jewelry. Taking care of jewelry is important to ensure that it will last a long time, because even the nicest pieces are prone to tangling and tarnishing. With a few steps you can ensure that your jewelry will last a long time... and what is more sustainable than that?!
#1: Staying beautiful
Water reacts with most metals, so the more contact your metal jewelry has with water the more likely it will be to tarnish or turn a different color. Avoid water contact with your jewelry whenever possible. Take your jewelry off when doing the doing the dishes, going swimming, and taking a shower.
Chemicals also are not very friendly to jewelry. If you are planning on using hairspray, perfume or any other products, be sure to use those before putting on your jewelry. This will help your jewelry stay the same color it way when you first got it.
#2: Staying untangled and organized
A properly stored piece of jewelry will be less likely to get tangled and the metal will stay beautiful. Storing jewelry in cool dry places will protect from water damage. This could be a simple jewelry box, or anything else you may have laying around your house (bonus if it is covered in a soft fabric to protect from scratches!). For keeping your pieces untangled, individual compartments work great for necklaces, bracelets, and earrings (also good for keeping pairs together, who wants to lose one earring and be left alone with the other?). Pushpins or other hooks are great ways to organize necklaces as well. Reusable bags (like our Fair Anita muslin pouches!) for storing individual pieces or pairs of earrings can help keep jewelry sorted and untangled.
Sometimes it is inevitable, and a necklace gets tangled, there is no need to worry though. Try using two pins to gently untangle a knot. It also helps to do it at a table, that way gravity is not pulling the knot back in place.
#3: Staying clean
If at the end of the day your jewelry does get a little dirty, there is no need to fret, it can be brought back to life with a simple eco-cleaning technique. Lemons have been used to bring jewelry back to life for some time now. By cutting a lemon in half and rubbing it on the tarnished areas, your jewelry should get its sheen back. For brass jewelry, you can also clean it with ketchup! Adding some baking-soda to the mix may also be helpful. It also helps to just rub your jewelry down at the end of the day with a polishing cloth, this will remove any dirt or chemicals before they can decolor your piece.
With these simple tips, we hope you can keep your favorite pieces of jewelry beautiful for a very long time!