Victoria’s Secrets: How to Clean Your Jewelry

Your fine jewelry may not look its best if you don’t keep your pieces clean. The buildup of sweat, soap, lotion, and everyday grime can make your custom jewelry look dull and dirty and harbor bacteria. Although cleaning jewelry is one of the complimentary services Rock N Gold Creations offers, many clients ask me how they can do it themselves at home. Here are some tips to keep your custom jewelry clean and gleaming:

GOLD: Soak the item for 15 minutes in a two cups of warm water with a few drops of a mild dishwashing liquid, like Joy. Gently scrub with a soft-bristle toothbrush. Rinse with warm water and dry with a soft cloth.

DIAMONDS: Soak for 20 minutes in a mixture of one cup warm water and ¼ cup ammonia. Gently scrub with a soft-bristle toothbrush, getting into the small areas between the diamond and the setting. Rinse with warm water, and lay on a tissue to dry.

PEARLS: Rub each pearl individually with a soft, clean cotton cloth dampened with a solution of two cups warm water and a few drops of a mild dishwashing liquid, like Joy. (Don’t soak your string of pearls; it can cause the string to stretch.) Let them air-dry overnight.

SILVER: Rinse in warm water and pat dry. If silver is tarnished, use a silver-polishing cloth or a jar of silver-cleaning fluid. (Silver cleaner won't harm gold and platinum, but it also won't clean them.) For intricately designed jewelry, use a silver-cleaning paste to get into small crevices. (Don't use toothpaste or other abrasive cleaners, which will scratch.) Wipe with a clean, soft cloth.

Call us today to make an appointment for complimentary jewelry cleaning!

Best wishes,

Victoria Mattar

Forged in the Earth to Delight People Forever… April’s Birthstone, the Diamond

“A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”


Born in April? Lucky, lucky you. You will have a lifelong excuse—as if you need one—to treat yourself to what is still the most popular and valuable gemstone on earth: the dazzling diamond.


Is there any stone more beloved and desired than the diamond, April's birthstone? Considering its rarity and value, it’s a tribute to the diamond’s appeal that so many women today own at least one, and many men do too.


The diamond is remarkably simple in its composition, yet stunning in its unique ability to reflect and refract light into vivid flashes of brilliant color, for which humans have always revered it. The ancient Hindus called the diamond “vajra,” meaning lightning, because of the sparks of light it throws off, as well as its invincible strength. The diamond is harder than any other substance on earth—four times harder than the next hardest natural mineral, corundum (sapphire and ruby). In 16th-century England, uncut diamond crystals were set into “scribbling rings,” the exposed points used by lovers to etch romantic messages into windowpanes. Diamonds have been used as cutting and engraving tools since early times, for carving cameos from stone, cutting jade, and drilling pearls.

The diamond’s value is not arrived at arbitrarily. It has many qualities that make it the most expensive and prized gemstone on earth. If you are a fan of superlatives, this list is for you:

Pear cut

• As mentioned above, a diamond is the hardest substance on earth by a wide margin. Nothing can scratch a diamond other than another diamond. And a diamond can scratch anything, even a sapphire.


• Pure diamond is completely colorless and transparent over a larger range of wavelengths (from the ultraviolet into the far infrared) than any other solid or liquid substance. Nothing else even comes close.


• Diamond conducts heat better than anything—five times better than the second best element, silver. (This is the basis for testing diamonds, as it’s easy to do and can’t be faked.)


• Diamond has a high index of refraction (ability to bend light), which gives it the high luster called adamantine. Diamond also has a relatively high optical dispersion, which gives it the flash of “fire” that makes it so desirable.


Diamonds have been revered throughout history, embellishing the items of royalty like crowns, swords, and emblems, as well as jewelry. Diamonds have also been credited for having certain medicinal properties. During the middle ages, they were thought to heal illness, but only if the ailing person took the diamond into bed to warm it up first. 


Historically, only the elite could own diamonds. In the 13th century, Louis IX of France even passed a law reserving diamonds only for kings. But as more sophisticated methods of diamond mining and exporting evolved, diamonds became more plentiful and accessible to others. 

A diamond before cutting

Formed deep within the earth where there is intense heat and pressure, diamonds are simply crystallized carbon. Volcanic activity brings the gemstones to the earth’s surface, where they are found either in volcanic rock formations or washed out into rivers. India is the first riverbed source of diamond mining, but today diamonds are found primarily in Australia, the Soviet Union, and Africa.



Believe it or not, an uncut diamond often looks like nothing more than a plain pebble upon the beach. The stones’ true beauty was not revealed until gemstone cutting and polishing techniques were perfected in the 16th century. Today, the value and appeal of a diamond depends largely upon how skillfully it is cut and faceted. Diamonds may be nearly any color in the rainbow plus browns, grays, and white. Shades of yellow are most common, followed by colorless. Blue, black, reddish, and greenish are more rare, and more valuable.

Princess or round cut

The ancient Greeks believed that the fire of a diamond reflected the flame of everlasting love. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian of Austria presented his fiancée, Mary of Burgundy, with a diamond ring, this beginning the tradition in the West of presenting the diamond as a promise of marriage and a symbol of everlasting love, now adopted the world over. It’s believed the origin of wearing the engagement ring on the third finger of the left hand is rooted in the ancient Egyptian belief that the “vena amoris,” or vein of love, runs from the heart to the top of this finger. 

From the stunning displays of designer stones flashed by movie stars on the red carpet to the modest engagement rings of young brides, diamonds continue to enjoy great popularity people from all walks of life. As actress Zsa Zsa Gabor said, summing up this universal love of diamonds: “I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.”


“Men grow cold as girls grow old, and we all lose our charms in the end. But square-cut or pear-shaped, these rocks don't lose their shape—diamonds are a girl's best friend.”
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Carrying on the great tradition of diamond jewelry, RGC specializes in creating the most unique and perfect expression of your love and commitment in engagement rings and bridal sets. For all the information you need about buying diamonds, such as an explanation of the Four Cs, please visit our website.

Simon Says…

The late Elizabeth Taylor wearing the Taylor-Burton diamond.

If, as Marilyn Monroe sang, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” then the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor, whom we lost recently, had a lot of VERY good friends. Taylor’s gifts of jewels from her two-time husband Richard Burton put her on the all-time list of diamond collectors. Starting with Burton’s first jewelry purchase for Taylor, the 33.19-carat Krupp Diamond, in 1968, the superstar couple’s names were on the list of important diamond auctions. (By the way, Taylor wore this magnificent stone in a ring almost daily, until her death.)


For her 40th birthday in 1972, Burton gave Taylor a heart-shaped diamond known as the Taj-Mahal, a large flat stone with an Arabic inscription on either side, set with rubies and diamonds in a yellow gold rope-pattern necklace. “This diamond has so many carats, its almost a turnip," Burton said about it at the time. But by the far the best known of his purchases was the 69.42-carat pear-shaped stone later to be called the Taylor-Burton Diamond. It was cut from a rough stone weighing 240.80 carats found in the Premier Mine in 1966, and subsequently bought by famed jeweler Harry Winston. You can read a fascinating account of how the stone came into Taylor’s possession, and what happened to it after that, here: http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/taylor-burtondiamond.html


Hollywood icons like Monroe and Taylor helped give diamonds the meaning and significance they have today. Although you may not be looking for a 60-carat stone, in today’s diamond market, it’s a good time to add more friends to your collection! Diamond prices are currently good, but like everything else, as the economy changes the diamond market will change with it. Medium diamonds are your best value. The collection diamond prices are still holding strong, but some good values can be found depending on the size you may be looking for. Come in to see our diamonds—we only carry premium to ideal collection diamonds, along with some great non-certified diamonds with our own specifications to give you the best value.


Trust Your Instincts... RGC Designed


Best regards,
Simon Mattar

Cool as Ever Creation of the Month

From our Cool as Ever collection of original RGC designs by Simon, our featured piece this month is a stunning recently completed white and pink diamond ring.

Details:

RGC Designed Platinum & Rose Gold

Center Diamond: 2.29ct Radiant Modified Brilliant

Side collection diamonds: 1.12ctw Round Brilliant

Side natural pink diamonds: .65ctw Round Brilliant

23.14 grams Platinum/Rose Gold

What’s Up, Doc? Carats, Karats, and Carrots

When you’re shopping for jewelry you’ll often hear the words “carat” and “karat” tossed around, and it may seem like they’re interchangeable. But if you pay attention you’ll see that one type of carat – spelled with a C – refers to the weight of diamonds and other gemstones, while the other type – spelled with a K – refers to the purity of gold.

Diamonds and other gemstones are weighed in metric carats: one carat is equal to 0.2 grams, about the same weight as a paperclip. Just as a dollar is divided into 100 pennies, a carat is divided into 100 points. For example, a 50-point diamond weighs 0.50 carats. But two diamonds of equal carat weight can have very different values depending on the other members of the Four C’s: Clarity, Color, and Cut. The majority of diamonds used in fine jewelry weigh one carat or less.

The karat, on the other hand, is a measure of the purity of gold alloys. Karat value of gold (or platinum) is determined using the following formula: the mass of pure gold or platinum in the material divided by the total mass, then multiplied by 24. Therefore 24-karat gold is fine (99.9%), 18-karat gold is 75% gold, 12-karat gold is 50% gold, and so forth. This is why the higher the karat value, the more yellow the gold looks. When you buy a piece gold jewelry, the karat value is usually stamped somewhere on it.

The word “karat” comes from the Greek kerátion, “fruit of the carob,” as carob seeds were originally used as weights on precision scales because they were thought (wrongly) to have a uniform weight. In the past, different countries each had their own karat, roughly equivalent to a carob seed. In the mid-16th century, the karat was adopted as a measure of gold purity.

As for carrots… well, those are probably in your refrigerator right now, and including them in your diet will help ensure you have sharp enough eyes to enjoy the brilliance of your carats and karats!