Most people who do fashion jewelry online shopping never think about care until something goes wrong. A necklace starts to look dull. An earring loses its finish. A bracelet that looked perfect on day one looks tired after a month. And the frustrating part is that most of this is completely avoidable.
Good jewelry care isn't complicated. It's mostly common sense applied consistently. But when you're wearing bio jewelry, pieces made from natural elements like spices, seeds, shells and botanicals plated in 22 kt gold, there are a few specific things worth knowing that don't apply to regular fashion jewelry. Tangerine Bio Jewelry's pieces go through a meticulous six-stage handcrafting process to ensure durability and finish and with the right care, they stay beautiful for a very long time.
Here's everything you need to know.
Understand What Your Jewelry Is Made Of
Before anything else, it helps to understand what you're actually caring for. Tangerine's bio jewelry is fundamentally different from standard fashion jewelry. The core of each piece is a natural element, a spice, a seed, a shell, or a botanical, which has been treated and plated in gold through a carefully controlled process. This means the piece is simultaneously more unique and more specific in its care needs than a standard metal or resin accessory.
The All Spice Bracelet, for instance, is made from actual spices plated in gold. The Cinnamon Earrings carry real cinnamon at their heart. The Amulet Neckpiece is crafted from natural elements shaped into something deeply wearable. These are not pieces that were stamped out of a machine. They were made by hand, from nature and they respond best to being treated with a bit of thought.
Knowing this changes how you handle them day to day.
The Golden Rule: Keep Them Dry
Water is the single biggest enemy of gold-plated jewelry regardless of what it's plated over. For bio jewelry specifically, where the core material is natural and organic, this matters even more. Moisture can affect both the plating and the underlying element over time.
The rule is simple: take your jewelry off before you shower, swim, wash dishes, or work out. This applies to the Kai Bracelet, your earrings, your necklaces, everything. It sounds obvious but it's the step most people skip because they're in a hurry and it's the one that shortens the life of a piece more than anything else.
The same applies to humidity. Don't store your jewelry in a bathroom. The steam alone from a daily shower will affect the finish of a gold-plated piece over weeks and months.
Perfume and Lotions Go On Before Jewelry
Spraying perfume directly onto jewelry or putting it on over freshly applied lotion is another very common way to accelerate wear. The chemicals in fragrances and moisturizers can react with gold plating and dull the finish faster than almost anything else.
The sequence should always be: get dressed, apply perfume and lotion, let it dry or absorb for a few minutes, then put your jewelry on. It takes thirty seconds of extra thought and it makes a meaningful difference to how long your pieces maintain their finish.
This is especially relevant for pieces like the Jugland Earrings that sit close to the neck, where people often spray fragrance.
Clean Gently and Infrequently
When your jewelry needs cleaning, less is more. A soft, dry cloth is almost always enough to restore the appearance of a gold-plated piece. Wipe it gently after wearing to remove any natural oils from your skin, which can build up over time and affect the finish.
If a piece needs a bit more attention, a very slightly damp cloth followed immediately by a dry one is fine. What you want to avoid entirely is soaking jewelry in water, using jewelry cleaning solutions not designed for plated pieces, or scrubbing with anything abrasive. Bio jewelry in particular should never be soaked because the natural core elements, even after treatment, don't benefit from prolonged contact with moisture.
Store Them Properly
How you store jewelry when you're not wearing it has a bigger impact than most people realize. The enemies here are air, moisture and friction.
Storing pieces loose in a drawer where they knock against each other causes surface scratching. Leaving them out on a dressing table exposes them to air and humidity continuously. The best approach is to store each piece separately in a soft pouch or a jewelry box with individual compartments. Tangerine's packaging, which is designed with care, can double as storage for pieces you wear less frequently.
For the Amulet Neckpiece or any chain-style piece, hanging storage or a flat pouch prevents tangling and keeps the natural elements from pressing against each other. For earrings like the Cinnamon Earrings or Jugland Earrings, a small sectioned box keeps pairs together and surfaces scratch-free.
Wear Them Regularly
This one surprises people, but it's true: jewelry that's worn regularly, handled and properly cared for after each use often looks better over time than jewelry that's stored away for months and brought out occasionally. Regular wear means regular wiping, regular attention and less chance of tarnish setting in unnoticed during long storage.
The pieces from Tangerine's Spice Collection and the Moana-inspired pieces like the Kai Bracelet are designed for real, regular wear. They're not display objects. The more you wear them thoughtfully, the better they tend to look.
A Note on Bio Jewelry Specifically
Because Tangerine's pieces are made from natural elements, they may show very slight variations in texture or color over extended time. This is not a flaw. It's the nature of working with organic materials, the same reason no two pieces are identical when you buy them. A slight deepening of tone in a spice piece or a subtle shift in a botanical element is part of the story of wearing something genuinely natural.
What you're protecting with good care is the gold finish and the structural integrity of the piece. The natural element at the core has already been through a six-stage treatment process specifically designed to stabilize and protect it. Your job is simply to not work against that.
The Short Version
Take your jewelry off before water, exercise and sleep. Let perfume and lotion dry before putting pieces on. Clean with a soft dry cloth after wearing. Store separately in pouches or a jewelry box. And wear your pieces regularly rather than saving them for special occasions that never quite come.
Do these things consistently and your Tangerine pieces, whether it's the All Spice Bracelet, the Amulet Neckpiece, or anything from their fashion jewelry online collections, will look and feel like new for years.
Shop the full range at thetangerinejewelry.com.