Care Advice
General Care
Wire jewellery and accessories are flexible and resilient, however they can be damaged with rough handling. I recommend storing your pieces in the jewellery box supplied to protect them. If your wire piece gets pulled out if shape slightly you can easily readjust it gently by hand. Always remove pieces in the bath or shower and avoid contact with perfumes and hairspray.
Metals
Over longer periods of time most metals react naturally to exposure to oxygen, and can become darker or develop a patina. This change of colour is sometimes called tarnish. To help preserve the colour of your pieces in the long term, keep them in their box, with an anti tarnish tab, and then place the box in an airtight container.
Hair Accessories
These are made with a variety of wires, some coloured like the bronze coloured wire in this picture, this should not tarnish over time. Others are made with gold plated wires and non tarnish silver plated wires. Even non tarnish wires can change colour, so it is wise to follow the advice above to care for your pieces. The actual fittings on hair combs, pins and metal headbands etc are mostly gold or silver coloured metal.
Jewellery
Silver pieces are made with fine silver wire or sterling silver wire and finished with sterling silver chains and hooks etc. Silver can tarnish with exposure to the air and humidity over time, it can develop a brown to dark grey patina, so it's important to store it carefully to help prevent this. You can polish it regularly with a jewellery cloth. You can also clean it using silver dip cleaner, however this can effect the finish on some beads and remove the sheen from pearls and mother of pearl so do read the manufacturer's instructions first.
Gold pieces are made with gold plated wire and finished with 14kt gold filled chains and hooks etc. Gold filled metal contains a higher percentage of gold compared to gold plated, the gold is mechanically bonded to the base metal and is a better quality product. The Victorians called it rolled gold. These pieces can become a richer shade of gold over time. They can be cleaned with a soft jewellery cloth.