Long Term Pearl Care

[xeresana]

I am building up a little collection of strands and earrings that I really love. Since I've invested a little bit of money into buying these strands, I want to make sure that I care for them properly and extend their life as long as possible. I'm careful to put on my pearls last and take them off first. I wait 30 minutes after applying any makeups, lotions, perfumes, etc. I wipe them down before returning them to their boxes. But, how should I store them? What kinds of other things should I be doing to make sure they have as long and beautiful a life as possible? And out of curiousity...

What kind of longevity can I expect from:

my freshadama strands
my cultured Tahitian and cultured South Sea strands
my Tahitian keishi strand

[jshepherd]

In terms of longevity, you have the right strands. They will all likely last you forever.
I suggest storing your pearls the bathroom. The humidity will do them good. I am not saying hang them next to the shower, but the overall humidity in the bathroom will do them good. A drawer or a satchel should suffice.
It goes without saying that chemicals need to be kept away from your pearls. But from the sound of it, you have no issues there. Also, you have quite a bit more leeway with the types of pearls you own. Most of the warning are imperative for Akoya, but strongly recommended for others.

Lastly, it is possible that the pearls will need to be cleaned someday. They may even need to be polished again to remove and film and bring out the sharp reflection. But that is about it!

[jerin]

Quote: Lastly, it is possible that the pearls will need to be cleaned someday. They may even need to be polished again to remove and film and bring out the sharp reflection. But that is about it!Quote

Jeremy,

Can we cutomers clean the pearls ourselves? What material would be needed - or do we have to send the pearls back to the seller? That would be quite expensive so if there is a way to do it - please tell us!

[purepearls]

You can clean them yourself. Often, all you need is a soft, damp cotton cloth to wipe them off. You can also polish them yourself with the sunshine cloth.

Also, make sure to take your pearls off before swimming in a pool! Often, there are large amounts of chlorine in the water and this can be damaging to pearls. Often, it is easy to forget when you only have pearl earrings on.

[pattye]

Hi Amanda,

I do have a sunshine cloth, but I am not certain just what you mean about polishing with it? Do those cloths come in different strengths??Just a couple of rubs on each pearl? Gently or firmly???? And does one need to rinse the pearls after???? Thanks so very much for sharing your expertise---

Pattye

[Ashley]

Hi Pattye,

I am pretty familiar with sunshine cloths- these are Silver polishing cloths with a metal-polishing compound enmeshed inside the fabric. I've heard it's ok to polish pearls with the Sunshine cloth with decent results for lighter scratches, but I would do this lightly, and then rinse the pearls thoroughly afterword to remove the Silver polish. You can even feel the polish on your fingers after using one of these cloths, so be sure to wash your hands thoroughly, too.

[jerin]

I suggest storing your pearls the bathroom. The humidity will do them good. I am not saying hang them next to the shower, but the overall humidity in the bathroom will do them good.

Jeremy or anyone of our other experts,

I just need to ask a bit more explicitly about the storage of pearls in general. I can´t see that storing them in the bathroom is a very good idea or do you mean just for a couple of hours/days once in a while?

Just think of burglars - I don´t wish to make it easier for anyone trying to steal my pearls!

I have all pearls in a large, rather heavy and quite old safe in a room downstairs in my house, that is very cool in summer (in winter it gets quite cold although no minus grades). In winter I notice when taking them out that the strands in question get misted over and feel very cold to the touch( where does the mist come from - from the pearls or from the immediate surroundings?) I hope not that the pearls are losing the humidity. I usually put the strand/strands in a room with normal temperatur (about 20-22°) for a while before putting it/them on.
However I do hope that the pearls do not get hurt through these switches in temperature. The lowest temperature int my "vaultroom" is around 7° in winter, in summer it is about 15 - 20° and today I checked the temperature, it is 10,5° in comparison to outdoors, there we have only 6,7° today. I just took a hygrometer into the vault- room and hope to get a reading very soon. I will come back later if necessary, the hygrometer is reacting rather slowly, right now it is about 47,5%, probably it might go down even more. Interestingly, the room does not feel dry at all, that could be because it is so very cool.

It is impossible to take the safe to any other room as ist weighs about 250 kg and it just does´nt fit in in any of the other rooms so I can´t see how I could store my pearls anywhere else. Besides that I have by now a quite large collection that I wish to keep safely.....

So what can You recommend/comment on in my special case and what temperature does Your own vault hold? What degree of moisture/humidity is needed or what percent would be too much?

I think this is the kind of knowledge that all members can have great use for.

[smetzler]

Jeremy or anyone of our other experts,

So what can You recommend/comment on in my special case and what temperature does Your own vault hold? What degree of moisture/humidity is needed or what percent would be too much?

I think this is the kind of knowledge that all members can have great use for.

As a retailer of fine handmade pianos, we are certainly concerned with temperature and humidity, for the integrity of the natural materials used (and their construction), as well as the piano's tuning (pitch). Moderation in all things seems to be the answer (50% to 65% humidity, 60 to 75 degrees Farenheit), and very popular systems exist to moderate the environment in the immediate vicinity of the piano. These systems can be oversold, but in every case their implementation represents the pride of ownership felt by the individual.

I wonder if pearls can go in and out of 'tune' (your reference to temporal cloudiness?)?

Steve
Seattle

[Caitlin]

Hi Inge.

I am laughing at the image of you putting the safe in your bathroom.

Golly, for folks blessed with so many pearls, they may not all fit in the bathroom!

I am curious about the mist on your pearls. If that is condensation from the air, it would be ok for CFWP, they like clean water. If we know why there is condensation, it would help, but it sounds like it may work.

I would think that any environment with humidity, is fine. Like, living in any humid climate. I live in AZ where it is very dry, especially in the winter with artificial heat (including fieplaces, etc) so the bathroom makes sense for me.

In the summer in Tucson, we have contraptions called "swamp boxes" or "coolers". Someone asked me what these were the last time I mentioned them, so here goes:

They are a large galvanized metal box with water in the bottom and big thick pads of aspen filling the four cutout sides. Then a contraption at the top, called a "spider" sucks water from the bottom and releases it onto the aspen pads, which then get soaked with water. Finally a small motor rotates a large "squirrel cage" which pushes a steady stream of moist air into the house. The moisture laden breeze cools a hot, dry house dramatically. In Tucson, the oldtimers run their swampboxes from April/May through October on average. (the non-natives, use air conditioning, which natives dislike because it leaves the air ever drier, not to mention the freeon- isn't today Earth day? bad freeon. Freeon bad, bad!)

So anyway, with a swamp box, everywhere is ok to store pearls. I like to hang my newly acquired cfwp hanks on the wall where the cooler blows right on them. They really seem to perk up and brighten after a couple of weeks in the cool, damp breeze.

BTW, Hanging pearls strung on silk in the cool damp breeze does not work, the silk stretches.

[Valeria101]

Never heard of a 'pearl humidor' yet... maybe it's time? The silk thread pearls are strung on isn't likely to enjoy the treatment nearly as much as the pearls might. Vivat Nylon, I guess...

Can't say I know for sure that pearls NEED to be kept any less dry than the usual house. Caitlin, your experiment with the swampbox is the first evidence beyond lots and lots of hearsay. Thanks!


PS. About the mist... If I am reading this right, the pearls move from below 7C to over 20C. That sounds enough to get a bit of condensation on them from the air humidity in the room. Nothing else... IMO; it would be a disproportionately HUGE amount of moisture to come from the pearls themselves, even partially.

[mikehrz]

PS. About the mist... If I am reading this right, the pearls move from below 7C to over 20C. That sounds enough to get a bit of condensation on them from the air humidity in the room. Nothing else... IMO; it would be a disproportionately HUGE amount of moisture to come from the pearls themselves, even partially.

I agree. I'd be willing to bet you would observe the same effect by breathing on the pearls after they've reached room temperature. The moisture in the air will condense when it hits an object colder than the air around it. When coming out of the safe, the pearls are colder than the room air; when your breath hits them, the pearls are still colder despite the fact that they're at room temp.

I would think that some kind of chemical reaction would be required to extract the water from the pearls themselves, not just a change in temperature. Surely, if the moisture were being removed from the pearls on a regular basis, the nacre would be dry, brittle, and cracking by now.

[jshepherd]

Hi Inge,

A collection like yours needs to be stored in a safe place. I imagine you would not have enough room in your bathroom to store them all. Jus do not leave them in an airtight location for an extended period of time and they will be fine.

Don't worry about the mist, either. It certainly is not coming from the pearls!

[jerin]

Hi everybody and thanks for your replies!

Caitlin, I think a swamp box might not do the job as the room has more than 46% humidity, which probably is enough for the pearls. Besides I am changing the necklaces, studs and every other pearl jewelry fairly often so I think all my pearls get enough moisture from my skin to last a long time... And no, I would not have place enough for my pearls in the bathroom! And think of all the strands stretsching, since nearly all of them are strung on silk....

I do have no cooler -on the contrary -we have a device that is collecting all redundant moisture so that no mildew can build downstairs.
The Safe room has no heating device, if we need it to be warmer, we just open it towards the other rooms (they are heated, of course).

Steve, yes pianos and pearls seem to have a lot in common - I have a piano as well and besides the yearly tuning we always have a little plastic box, filled with water, inside the "piano body" to keep the natural material from drying.

Jeremy, just what temperature and humidity do You have in the vault?

Mikehrz and Valeria, I too think it is because of the cold to the warmer temperature that the pearls get condensed. So far I have not seen a single pearl that shows cracks or anything like it.....

[Caitlin]

Swamp boxes only work in low humidity places, like Arizona! I think our humidity runs less than 10% most of the time. I don't know what our humidity runs with a cooler, though we rarely get mold from the cooler moisture- That comes in the Monsoon season when the swamp box doesn't work anyway.

[perlas]

It's my first time to hear about swamp boxes and it sounds interesting.

Any suggestions on how to store pearls in "hot and humid" weather (like 35-40C and around 47% humidity)?

Even though there is enough humidity here, I'm afraid the heat might dry up the pearls!