Jewellery Care
All Julie Duggan Designs are made from Sterling Silver and the highest quality gemstones. Caring for this jewellery properly is very important if you want it to look as good as the day you received it.
The following information will help you keep your jewellery in its perfect condition for years to come.
• Silver naturally tarnishes in the air, especially in the heat, so polish it regularly with a silver polishing cloth.
• Never use silver dip on jewellery with gemstones as it will destroy your gemstones.
• Remove jewellery when showering or swimming as water and chlorine can tarnish and damage your jewellery.
• Avoid contact with cleaning products, as this could harm your jewellery.
• Cosmetics, perfumes, skin and hair care products, could also tarnish or corrode your jewellery. So it’s best to put jewellery on after you have applied these to your body.
• Try to store your jewellery separately so it doesn’t get scratched and tangled and damaged.
• We advise you not to sleep in your jewellery.
Hallmarking
You will have seen that all of our jewellery is made from Sterling Silver, but what exactly does this mean?
To be branded as such a piece must contain 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, which means Sterling Silver is known as an alloy. Pure silver is a very soft metal, and if we made our jewellery out of it, it would quickly lose its shape. So a different metal is added to the silver to increase its durability, without reducing the beautiful look.
We only use the highest quality 925 Sterling Silver (remember 925 = 92.5% silver), backed up by our British Hallmark – a small mark stamped into the jewellery to guarantee quality.
To ensure the quality of all our jewellery, the British Hallmark is applied to all our pieces above the legal weight threshold of 7.78 grams of silver. We also qualify for the assay assured scheme, an independent Hallmark verification operated by the Assay Office.
Our Hallmark is normally stamped with 3 elements:
• Our company hallmark in a square box.
• 925 in an oval – this indicates that it is sterling silver.
• Anchor or other symbol indicating the place of assay.