Preserving your mementos in resin jewelry and trinkets is only the first step in sustaining that memory forever. If you don’t maintain and store your resin keepsakes correctly, they could become clouded, dull, or otherwise damaged.
There are several different types of resins used for jewelry, and you can’t treat them all the same way. Some resins are very hard and can be polished and shaped with a Dremel tool. Other resins are extremely soft and would be irreparably damaged with those means. If you don’t know what type of resin was used to make your jewelry, you should be very cautious about how you care for it.
If you purchased your preserved resin items from us, you should use only the following guide for polishing and storing your memorial jewelry.
Why Resin Jewelry Needs to Be Polished
Our resin jewelry is made with a softer epoxy resin that should be carefully and gently cleaned and polished. Epoxy resin is a petroleum product (a type of plastic), but it is made in such a way that it does not pollute the air or water with non-reactive chemicals.
This soft plastic resin can easily become yellowed, white or clouded. The most common causes of cloudy resin jewelry include:
- Submersion in liquid or excessive moisture/humidity
- Extended exposure to UV sunlight
- Contact with certain oils or chemicals
If you properly care for your resin jewelry, you shouldn’t really need to polish it very often. But if you wear it frequently, display it in the open, or don’t store it properly, you could need to polish it from time to time.
How to Keep Your Keepsake Resin Jewelry in Perfect Condition
Want your keepsakes to last for a lifetime? You need to care for them properly. You can keep your resin jewelry in good condition by developing a few simple habits.
- Limit how frequently you wear the jewelry or expose it to UV sunlight.
- Keep the resin completely dry. Showering, bathing, swimming, or high humidity environments should be avoided.
- Be careful about where and how you store and display your resin jewelry. Dark airtight bags or boxes are best.
- Avoid using chemicals or oils while wearing the jewelry.
- Examine, clean, and polish on a regular basis to maintain clarity of memorial and floral preserved jewelry.
If you make a mistake, your resin jewelry might still be salvageable. While extreme heat can melt the epoxy too much for preservation, the discoloration can be remedied easily with polishing.
Steps for Polishing Resin Jewelry
If your keepsake resin jewelry does become clouded, you can polish it to bring it back to its original clarity and shine with a little time and patience.
To polish the resin itself, you need a small amount of slightly soapy water (a mild dish soap like Dawn is best) and a soft cloth. Tearing up old soft t-shirts makes for great polishing cloths for all types of items.
If your keepsake has gold or silver, the metal could be tarnished. If that is the case, you’ll also need a slightly more abrasive cloth, like a dishrag.
Get comfortable once you have your jewelry and everything you need. Polishing resin jewelry can take some time because you need to do it gently and slowly. When you’re ready, follow these steps.
- Dampen the soft cloth with the soapy water and gently clean any debris or dust from the keepsake. Important! Do not submerge your jewelry, even if it has gotten something on it that is a bit harder to remove.
- If your jewelry has gold or silver that is tarnished, start by getting the more abrasive cloth slightly damp and rub the metal until the tarnish reveals shiny metal beneath. Important! Do not allow the abrasive cloth to rub on the epoxy itself. This can permanently scratch or damage the keepsake.
- Using the softer cloth dampened with the soapy water, gently and slowly polish the resin. Important! Friction creates heat, and heat is very damaging to cured resin. Make sure you polish slowly.
- Dry your resin jewelry gently with a clean, dry, soft cloth.
Your jewelry or flower petal resin charm will look like new when you are finished, so long as you take your time and be patient with the process.
Storing Your Resin Jewelry
Now that you have your resin jewelry clean and looking beautiful again, you don’t want to risk anything else happening to it. You should store it in a protected and airtight place. Using a small ziplock jewelry bag combined with a dark jewelry box is a great solution. If you want to display your resin keepsakes out in the open, do so in an airtight and UV protected glass case.
Taking care of your memorial resin jewelry is easy.
Cleaning and protecting your resin jewelry is easy and well worth the effort to have a tangible memory that lasts a lifetime. Want your own commemorative resin keepsake? Contact us today.
