Tag: Care

Every Trinket File guide tagged care: cleaning, storing and wearing jewellery and accessories without avoidable damage.

A titanium chronograph on its metal bracelet

Watch Straps and Everyday Accessories: Materials, Fit and Care

Most advice about watches concerns the movement, which you cannot see and will probably never touch. The strap is the part you feel all day, the part that fails first, and the one you can judge and ch

A metal strip with one end polished bright next to the dull, tarnished section

Tarnish, Plating Wear and What Can Be Restored

Trinket File
Care
26 Aug, 2026

A dulled piece of jewellery is usually called tarnished and treated with a polishing cloth. Sometimes that is right. Sometimes the dullness is not a film on the metal but metal that is no longer there

Plain bands worn on two hands resting on white linen

Everyday Jewellery: What Survives Daily Wear

Trinket File
Buying
11 Aug, 2026

The jewellery that survives daily wear is not the most expensive jewellery. It is the jewellery with enough metal in the right places. Two pieces can carry the same hallmark and the same price, and on

A velvet jewellery box holding a tray of silver rings

Caring for Jewellery at Home: Cleaning, Storage and Wear

Trinket File
Care
28 Jul, 2026

Very little jewellery is ruined by cleaning. A great deal is ruined by wearing it in the wrong places, storing it in a heap, and cleaning it with something more aggressive than it needed. The right ap

An open pearl oyster shell holding a single pearl

Pearls and Organic Gemstones: Judging and Care

Pearls and the other organic materials used in jewellery are graded with language borrowed from diamonds, which is where the confusion starts. A mineral stone is judged on colour, clarity and cut, and

A ten-times jeweller's loupe on a plain surface

Judging a Stone: What You Can Check and What You Cannot

The gemstone trade runs on the gap between how a stone looks and what it actually is. Colourless stones can be diamond, moissanite, cubic zirconia or glass, and the difference is invisible to the nake

A stud earring with its butterfly back in close up

Earrings: Metals, Backs and Everyday Comfort

Trinket File
Buying
06 Apr, 2026

An earring is chosen in a mirror, in seconds, and then worn for ten hours at a time. The judgement made in the mirror concerns how the piece looks from the front. The parts that decide whether it is c

Sheets and granules of gold, copper, brass and silver on a white surface

Choosing a Metal for Everyday Wear

Trinket File
Materials
24 Mar, 2026

The metal you choose for a piece you wear daily matters more than the design detail you spent an hour deciding on. Metals differ in how they scratch, how they tarnish, how they feel, how heavy they ar