How to take care of your bronze jewellery?

Do you like your bronze jewelry? You don’t know how to get them back to their lovely golden color? So you wear them less and less? Good thing, there are lots of tricks to take care of your jewellery without any hassle!

I am going to share with you below some tips and tricks to maintain your bronze jewellery!

Before getting to the heart of the matter, it is important to specify that bronze jewellery changes colour due to oxidation.

But what is oxidation? It is a natural process by which bronze molecules are transformed into oxide by reacting with oxygen in the air. The oxidation of a piece of bronze jewellery therefore takes place from the moment it comes into contact with air. For this reason, it is not possible to avoid its oxidation.

In practice, the colour change of bronze jewellery can be more or less rapid depending on its use. For example, bronze jewellery changes colour rapidly when it is in contact with water, sweat and any wet environment. Bronze jewellery does not like humidity!

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Despite following these tips, your jewellery has changed colour, it has oxidised and you want to clean it?

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cleaning bronze jewel

There are many products that can clean bronze jewellery.

Marseille soap: Simply rub your bronze jewel with a little Marseille soap, then rinse well and dry the jewel.

Toothpaste : Rub the jewelry with a little toothpaste, rinse well and dry.

The silver stone or clay stone : It was a friend who introduced me to the silver stone and not knowing this product, I was bluffed when I tried it on my bronze jewellery.

I then wanted to buy a silver stone and not finding one in the shops I usually go to, I bought a clay stone. I used my clay stone in the same way as the silver stone and there again I got a very good result.

I highly recommend these three products to clean your bronze jewellery. They are effective, inexpensive and for some, natural.

I also read on the net that it is possible to clean your bronze jewellery using: methylated spirits, red wine, white vinegar and lemon juice.

As I have not experimented with these products on my bronze jewellery, I cannot guarantee their effectiveness.

The protection of bronze jewellery

Once your jewels are cleaned, it is possible to protect them in order to limit their oxidation.

There are special varnishes for metals. Having tried this type of varnish, I am rather mixed as to their effectiveness. Indeed, they protect bronze jewellery but the protection lasts only a limited time. The varnish will eventually flake off and come off permanently.

Finally, there is beeswax, which protects and also cleans jewelry.

all bronze jewellery from Atelier Marlène Lyotard are protected by a thin layer of beeswax.

Beeswax remains for me one of the best solutions to clean and protect bronze jewellery.

Indeed, to protect the jewels I make, I use organic wax in the form of nuggets (photo above) that I cut with oil.

If beeswax is a good protection to prevent oxidation, its effectiveness is, as with varnishes, limited in time. On the other hand, if the beeswax layer is removed over time, it does not flake or yellow like varnishes.

For this last reason, I very much appreciate the use of beeswax.

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span style=”color: #ffffff;”>This article having been written in 2017, a small update is necessary (Updated 03 April 2020).

3 years after writing this article, I am still as convinced as ever by the use of beeswax to clean and protect bronze jewellery!

However, since then, new products have come out and I would like to share a product that I find fantastic (even magical ^^) allowing easy cleaning of bronze jewellery. These are the sunshine polishing cloths:https://sunshinepolishingcloth.com/

To care for your bronze jewellery, you can first clean it with this cloth and then apply some beeswax and spread it with another cloth (soft cloth or microfibre cloth) until the jewellery is no longer sticky.

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