How do you clean gold-plated jewelry?

Warm water and a drop of mild soap, rubbed gently with your fingers or a soft cloth, rinsed and dried completely. That is the whole method. Everything else in this article is about what not to do, because that is where plated jewelry is actually lost.

I learned this the expensive way. A pair of earrings had gone dull, I took a polishing cloth to them the way my mother does with her silver, and I watched the gold come away at the edges while I worked. I had not failed to clean them. I had cleaned them exactly as instructed and the instruction was for a different kind of jewelry.

Why the usual advice does not apply

Almost every cleaning method you will read about works by abrasion. A polishing cloth carries a fine abrasive in the fabric. Toothpaste and baking soda are abrasives you already own. A silver dip strips a chemical layer, and an ultrasonic bath shakes material loose. On solid gold all of that is reasonable, because you are removing a thin skin of a piece that is gold the whole way through.

A plated or PVD-coated piece is not gold the whole way through. It is a layer of gold over another metal, measured in microns. Polish it and you are not bringing the shine back up from underneath, because there is nothing underneath except the base metal you were trying not to see. This is the single thing worth taking away: on a plated piece, shine can be cleaned but it cannot be restored.

The method

• Warm water, not hot. A bowl, not a running tap over an open drain.
• One drop of plain washing-up liquid. Nothing described as a jewelry cleaner, dip or polish.
• Your fingers, or a soft cloth with no abrasive in it. Not a toothbrush, which is stiffer than it feels and goes straight for the edges where plating is thinnest.
• Rinse in clean water. Soap residue left to dry is a common reason a piece looks cloudy a week later.
• Dry completely, including inside hoops and hinges, before it goes back in a box. A piece put away damp is the one you find marked.

What to keep away from it

• Impregnated polishing cloths, the kind sold for silver. The abrasive is the point of them.
• Toothpaste and baking soda, which are the two most repeated hacks on the internet and the two most likely to cost you the finish.
• Silver dips and tarnish removers. They are chemistry aimed at a different metal.
• Ultrasonic and steam cleaners. Opinion is genuinely divided on plated metal, and a divided opinion is reason enough to use the method that nobody argues about.
• Alcohol, acetone, nail polish remover and hand sanitiser, which end up on jewelry more often by accident than by decision.
• Perfume and hairspray. Put them on first, let them dry, then put the jewelry on.

Storing it between wears

Half of what looks like cleaning is really storage. Pieces that live loose in a dish scratch each other, and a bathroom shelf is the most humid place in the house.

• Dry and separate. A soft pouch each, or compartments, so nothing rubs against anything harder than itself.
• Out of the bathroom. A bedroom drawer is drier than anywhere near a shower.
• Not sealed in while damp. An airtight bag holds moisture against the metal as effectively as it keeps air out.

What I could not find out

I wanted to point you at an authority on this and I could not find one. The gemological institutes publish careful guidance on cleaning stones and solid metals, and the general reference material I checked does not address plating at all: Wikipedia's article on jewellery cleaning covers gold, silver, platinum and gemstones, and says nothing about plated or coated metal. Retailer advice fills the gap and contradicts itself, including on whether an ultrasonic cleaner is safe.

So the advice above is reasoned from what plating is rather than copied from a standard, and I would rather say that than imply a source I do not have. The parts that are not in dispute are the parts I would hold to: water and mild soap are safe, abrasion removes material, and material removed from a plated piece does not come back. For what the pieces here are actually made of, see specifications, and for what water does to a steel base, can you shower, swim and sleep in gold jewelry.