Gold Locket Care and Maintenance

The last thing you want after finding that perfect piece of jewelry is to have it tarnish and wither over time. And the only way to make sure that this doesn’t happen is dutiful care and maintenance. The more you take care of your gold locket, the longer it’ll keep your memories safe with a shine and a gleam. This is definitely worth the effort, so be diligent. Laziness is only rewarded with sad and unattractive jewelry.

Tarnish and Corrosion

While pure gold doesn’t tarnish, nearly every gold locket sold out there isn’t pure gold. This is because the pure stuff is way too soft. 18k, 14k, or 10k gold tarnishes because the other metals in the gold alloy react with the environment to create ugly nastiness. Corrosion is basically a fancy word for tarnish. I put a picture of gold corrosion down below - you don’t want this happening to your gold locket!

So how can you make sure that your locket doesn’t suffer this cruel, cruel fate?

Easy Everyday Solutions

There are some easy tricks you can use on an everyday basis that’ll really keep your locket in good shape for much longer than it would otherwise.

1) Make sure to store your locket in a soft pouch when you’re not using it. Just leaving it out is pure laziness! So long as you keep your gold locket in a dry location, it won’t be able to react with the air, keeping it safe. Even a soft cloth will do fine.

2) Don’t let your locket stay wet. This one seems like a no-brainer, but just make sure you keep it in mind. Water can corrode the locket by reacting with the other metals in the gold alloy, so be careful! This is a chemical reason, in essence - the oxygen in water is what corrodes the non-gold elements in the gold locket.

3) Watch out when cutting certain fruits and vegetables.

This one’s a whole lot less obvious. Any food that’s acidic can hurt your locket - this includes orange juice! Vegetables like onions and many spices also contain sulfur. Sulfur hates gold alloys and will attack it given half the chance. Make sure if any of this stuff gets on your gold locket that you wipe it off and dry it immediately!

Care Over Time

In the long run there are a couple of things you can do to make sure your gold locket stays in tip-top shape. This isn’t everyday stuff, and you should only need to do it once in awhile.

1) Polish the gold with a soft cloth. Just get yourself a sudsy water solution and lightly rub away your problems. Making the water lukewarm can help get rid of the more stubborn bits. Don’t do this too often, though, or you might start smoothing out the details in the locket exterior. Be careful, take your time, and don’t be too tough on the gold locket.

2) Ultrasonic cleaning at the jewelers. If things get rough you could always take the locket to the jewelers and put it in an ultrasonic bath. High frequency vibrations will shake free any tarnish which won’t go away. This might cost you money, so try not to do it if you don’t have to!

The Ideal Solution

The only way to make sure corrosion and tarnish go away for good is putting an electroplated pure gold layer on top. This can get really pricy, but the pure gold won’t get tarnished and won’t react with the environment. It’s expensive, but that’s why it’s the best!

Diligence!

Be diligent in taking care of your gold locket and it will last you a lifetime!