Silver pendants are a great way to add style to your look. With their understated, and yet attractive silver appeal, they are perfect for almost any occasion. However, they can only highlight your look and create the appeal that they usually do if you take good care of them.
When sterling silver pendants become tarnished, they become dull and unattractive. In such cases, they lose their appeal and cannot elevate an outfit or style. The good news is that silver pendants do not tarnish easily. This is so especially if you can protect them from the damaging effect of moisture — while pure water is not damaging to silver, most of the water that we encounter in our daily lives is not purified and hence can cause tarnishing. The following are tips that will come in handy in helping you to keep your silver jewelry tarnish-free by protecting it from moisture.
Wipe it
When you wear a silver pendant throughout the day, you expose it to a variety of elements. In addition to exposing it to moisture that is available in the air, you also expose it to your sweat.
Body sweat poses a high risk as far as silver tarnishing is concerned. The first one is that it contains both moisture and body oils that can react with the surface of the silver. The second risk is the fact that when you sweat, the sweat gets mixed up with the body lotion and other products that you use on your body. A combination of both compounds in the sweat and these products then creates a concoction that accelerates the rate at which the pendant becomes tarnished.
Therefore, you should always take time to wipe off these compounds before storing your pendant. Doing so every time at the end of the day will ensure that the moisture, and the resulting compounds, do not have enough time to tarnish your jewelry. It will, therefore, limit the rate at which your pendant gets tarnished.
Take it off
Another simple way of protecting your silver jewelry is to take it off before engaging in certain activities. A good example is swimming. Since the water in most pools contains chlorine, this water can corrode your pendant. It can corrode it and cause it to lose its sparkling appearance. Therefore, if you take it off before jumping into the pool, you will protect the silver pendant from the damaging effect of pool water.
Taking the pendant off when taking a shower or taking a bath with also help. This is because it will protect it from the damaging effect of both heat and the compounds that are normally contained in unpurified water. Doing this simple thing will ensure that your pendant retains its look for a longer period of time.
Use air-tight boxes
Even when you are not wearing your pendant, it is still getting exposed to moisture. With time, this moisture can end up accelerating the rate at which your jewelry becomes tarnished. To protect this from happening, you should consider storing it in an air-tight box. This is so especially if you stay in areas with climates that feature extremely high humidity.
Use silica gel packs
Sometimes, airtight boxes are not enough to keep your jewelry moisture-free. If you live in extremely humid places, the little exposure that your jewelry gets right before you place it in the storage box is sometimes enough to kickstart the tarnishing process. Furthermore, since the airtight boxes already have air, the moisture in this air will pose a risk to your jewelry’s look.
To ensure a completely moisture-free storage environment, you should consider using silica gel packs. These inexpensive packs are great at keeping a storage space moisture-free since they actively absorb moisture from the environment. In the process of absorbing the moisture, they change color. This makes it easy for you to know when to replace them with new packs.
Simply throw a few of these packs in the storage space and your jewelry will be safe from all the damaging effects that come with moisture exposure.