What exactly is waterproof or water-resistant jewelry? Why is it essential for jewelry to be considered water-resistant? How do you identify truly water-resistant jewelry?
One of our customers asked me all these questions, and that's amazing how the internet is full of misleading information to customers.
First of all, the same importance you give to a waterproof watch, you have to give to jewelry. While a watch can damage its mechanical or digital functionality, it can damage jewelry by changing color to greenish or black. You may find some spots in your jewelry that will make you feel frustrated.
When anything like that happens, it means two things:
- Your jewelry is not gold-filled or even truly gold plated. It's probably custom jewelry or bijoux.
- Your jewelry has not had enough gold to protect the base metal from contaminating the jewelry surface.
The terminology "waterproof" in the gold-filled or even gold-plated market is just to make you understand that the jewelry has enough gold to protect against any possible damage such as tarnish, greenish color contamination, and spots.
Whenever jewelry is considered "waterproof" or "water-resistant," it means a quality product that, even underwater, keeps its original appearance. Nonetheless, we recommend the following for long-life quality:
- Whenever you have direct contact with cosmetics, lotions, or creams on your skin, it is better to avoid direct contact with the jewelry.
- If any harsh chemical contacts the jewelry surface, wash it off with neutral soap and use a hair dryer to dry out the piece altogether. Take a half-foot distance when using the hair dryer.
- If you go to the beach, because of the sea's salt, we recommend the same process in step 2.
- It is imperative to keep the jewelry dry to avoid future spots.
Good quality waterproof jewelry looks like solid gold. You may not see the difference. The difference you will find is in the jewelry weight: usually, solid gold is heavier than gold filled.
