AboutThomas Expertise Have a question about jewelry repair or working with precious metal jewelry and gemstones? I am a working professional bench jeweler, involved everyday with setting stones in mountings, designing and making jewelry, repairing and limited custom manufacture. Over 30 years experience. If you work with jewelry as a hobby or as a profession, I might be able to help. I deal with the retail business, not mass production. Ask privately if you wish. See the box for that: It keeps your question between us. Please DO NOT ask MAKER'S MARKS, but metal quality marks are fine to ask. Please DO NOT ask diamond prices. See a gemologist for that.
Experience I have near 35 years experience at the sort of jewelry work I do.
Education/Credentials Education is English/Physics! Started in human resources, to advertising, to jewelry...wow, what a road. Now a jeweler for many years. I have had formal training in jewelry work and many shared experiences with top grade jewelers. We just never know were we will go or be. Follow your best, your dreams, with some discretion! Don't let the work tear up your body along the way.
Question No, I am not a jeweler. I have two beautiful diamond and gold rings. To clean them, I drop them in a glass with a few tablets of denture cleaner. It does an excellent job of cleaning them. Is this harmful to the rings? Thanks, Jan
Answer Dear Janet, I did not know your question was here till tonight. Please forgive. I am working on a old pc recently connected to the net. The other one totally Crashed! I have been off the net a while. I will answer your question tomorrow evening. Sorry for the delay. That is not like me!
First, I have to see what is in denture cleaner. Will be back.
God Bless. Thomas. Sept 2, 03 9:29 pm
Here is you answer, I am back at last. : )
Hi again, Janet,
Thanks for the question. You are certainly not the only one who has found denture cleaner will sparkle up jewelry. However, there is a high risk of paying a price in jewelry damage. Sure, this is faster than the standard soft tooth brush and mild detergent(like Joy) methods. But the speed and effect do come with a risk. The following is from a dental site discussing the use of cleaners on dentures. The interesting part is the ingredients! I will tell about these ingredients and you will see why denture cleaner is not recommended for jewelry cleaning.
‘Denture cleaners sold over the counter, clean so fast that they should be classified as “Stain Removers” instead of “Denture Cleaner”.
Many denture cleaners sold in drug stores contain Perborate (Borax) as the active ingredient. Others contain bleach (Hypochlorite), and Persulfate (Sulfur) as active ingredients. Only “Prolastic Denture Cleaner” uses Buffered Alkali as the active ingredient. Alkali is the active ingredient in many of your household cleaners such as dishwasher liquid, shampoo, bar soap, clothes washing detergent, etc.'
THE PROBLEM WITH DENTURE CLEANERS AND JEWELRY.
Three chemicals stand out: Hypochlorite, Persulfate and “alkali”. The borax is not harmful in mild solutions.
Hypochlorite is a bleaching agent. Think of chlorine bleach. Think of chlorine in a swimming pool. Certainly the concentration of this bleach in the cleaner is stronger than chlorine in a swimming pool and possibly as strong as a bleach solution you might use to take stains off a porcelain bowl, for instance. We know that swimming in jewelry is a big NO. Jewelers should know this and too often other folks learn the hard way. Not only does chlorine cause silver to tarnish, it causes the metal in gold jewelry to break down at certain areas. This is especially true for white gold. Since many yellow gold rings have white gold to hold the stones, jewelry is in danger anytime it is around chlorine chemicals.
This is what happens: The chlorine works on the other metals used to make the gold recipe. The metal is weakened and too often this means a prong holding a stone will break off. The stone can be lost.
Persulfate is a chemical used in very, very small quantities by bakers to treat flour for bread. In concentrated form, this chemical is used to “etch” copper! It is strong enough to eat into the copper metal. Copper is a part of most jewelry gold and there is a real possibility of damage to parts of the ring where metal is “put together” to make the ring. These are “solder joints” and over time, the chemical may weaken the metal. I am not so concerned with this chemical as the one mentioned before, the bleach Hypochlorite.
Alkali is simply a term for many chemicals with the same sort of actions. A good example is lye. Another is oven cleaner. Another is dish detergent. You see, the strength determines the dangerous nature of the chemical. Lye will burn you, oven cleaner will sometime burn and certainly irritate the skin. Dish detergent is not dangerous and does a good job on dishes and on jewelry. An alkali denture cleaner might be ok. Since I don't know the strength of it, I cannot say for sure. Generally alkali does not bother gold and diamonds.
Here is a little tad of advice on jewelry cleaning. First, stay away from denture cleaners. Please! Use a soft toothbrush and dish detergent, followed with a polishing cloth. (The newer cloths are clean to handle and do a wonderful job of bringing out the shine!) Hand cleaning is time consuming, for sure. But, you also get a chance to really look the jewelry over and touch each stone to see if loose. Also, look for worn metal where the stones are mounted.
Nothing containing ammonia or chlorine should be used with silver jewelry. Mild household ammonia is a great jewelry cleaner for gold and diamonds.
Most gemstones are safe with dish detergent or even with ammonia solutions. For the following stones, avoid the ammonia and just use a mild detergent, rinse well and pat dry: Emerald, Pearl, Turquoise, Lapis.(Certainly do NOT use denture cleaner on these stones.)
I would recommend you ask a local jeweler to professionally clean your jewelry ever so often. A good jeweler should do this for free. They will also check the stones and the jewelry for wear and security of the stones. I am very glad you clean your jewelry regularly. Too many people just do not do that. They wind up losing stones and having the jewelry break simply because not enough attention was paid to the jewelry beforehand. You are doing the right thing, just using the wrong chemicals to clean jewelry safely.
I don't blame you for trying the denture cleaner. You obviously love your rings and care enough to clean and take good care of your precious jewels. So, I suggest again, the best care is not to use dental cleaners. The harm is often hidden and a lost stone can be the result, quite unexpedly.
Thanks again. I do appreciate the question. If you need more information or think of something else, please use the follow-up or ask again for a clean page. Once more, I apoligize for getting late on this answer. The mail didn't even show it..likely came to my other pc when it crashed. I found you question when I checked the site just to be sure.
