[Jewelry making - Article 00414] - Re: [Orchid] Cleaning Pearls

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     Damaged pearls are a nightmare.  I've had good results with gently
>     wiping the pearls with extra virgin olive oil. This restores the
>     oil that your body puts on the pearls. 

    Oiling pearls only has the effect of making them oily.  It may look
    better in the same way that a wet surface may look shinier than it
    does when dry, but the pearl itself has not been changed for the
    better under that oil by this. It's just now dirtier than it was
    before.  However, if the pearn nacre layer is thick enough, you can
    actually do some light polishing on pearls.  It MUST be a thick enough
    nacre layer, or you'll polish through it into the nucleous, which is
    usually a boring and ugly shell bead, on salt water cultured pearls.
      Don't use a polishing compound with any 'cut" to it.  Just gentle
    polishing compounds, such as zam or fabuluster (I like the rather
    costlier platinumg rouge from Gesswein.  i use their 8000
    compound...) , and do so very very lightly.  Pearls who's nacre has
    actually cracked or crazed won't be helped.  but the ones that now
    look a bit dull and hazy, when they used to have better luster, or
    which have become scuffed and scratched by abuse,  often will respond
    to this. You'll then need to clean them well to remove residual
    compound,   And then restring. Some of the better quality freshwater
    pearls can be helped this way too, though the baroque shapes make
    them harder to work with.   Please be aware that this is somewhat
    risky.  Some pearls will look better after some light buffing, and
    others won't, and with a few, you'll discover that the nacre was
    thinner than you realized, or your buffing technique more agressive
    than you realized, in both cases to the detriment of the pearl. 

    Of course, if you WANT to oil your pearls, go right ahead.  Unless
    it's acidic or cuastic or something, it won't hurt them.  Just
    understand that even though they come from organic sources, they
    DON"T need some oil or other content that might evaporate or be
    cleaned off, and which you then can replenish.  This sounds nice, but
    it's not true, any more than the old wives tale that oiling opals
    helps them.  It doesn't do that either.  Like the pearls, it just
    makes them oily, and perhaps the film of oil looks shinier 

Peter



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