Preserving your cultured pearls

Cultured pearls are made to be worn. The wearing one only amplifies its beauty.
However, a number of precautions have to be taken to preserve them and avoid damaging them.

Dipping them in water

Cultured pearls are made by living animals underwater. As such, they are not affected by water and humidity in general.
The jewelry as a whole is made to resist water, even salt water.

To help preserve the shine, dip them in salt water every year or so.

Pool water is not fatal to the pearls, but it is highly suggested to not regularily subject pearls to pool water, as it contains chlorine that can slowly erode the mother-of-pearl of the period of a few years.

Putting away your cultured pearls

Because cultured pearls are not as hard as gemstones and some metals, they should not be in direct contact with gemstones, to avoid the risk of scratching  the pearls. A simple cloth solves the problem.

Cleaning your cultured pearls

Cleaning a cultured pearl is as simple as rubbing the pearl with a soft cloth, either dry or slighty humidified.

A few precautions to keep in mind:
-If your pearl is on a ring, remove the ring using the ring's body
-If the pearl is very dirty and not well preserved, let the pearl dip in water with hand soap before rubbing it with a cloth. Do not use any soap unfit to contact with human skins, or hydroalcoholic based hand sanitizer. 

Things to avoid:

Unless clearly indicated otherwise, do not use cleaning chemicals or cloths imbibed with cleaning chemicals to clean the pearl. Chemicals too acidic or containing ammonium will erode the mother-of-pearl.

It is preferable to avoid contact with every day chemicals such as perfume, vinegar, lemon juice and hair product. They aren't very damaging to pearls, so accidently spraying your jewelry with perfume won't be harmful to it. especially if you wash it off with water. This is more to make sure your pearls keep their shine for decades, rather than to prevent them from being visibly damaged.

Due to their nature, pearls do not resist well to sudden temperature changes. Exposing the pearls to the sun on a very hot day, then plunging them in cold water may fissure the mother-of-pearl if done too often.