Can bacteria and viruses live on and in my jewelry and will a hand sanitizer hurt my jewelry?
Can bacteria and viruses live on and in my jewelry and will a hand sanitizer hurt my jewelry?
These are the questions we are hearing more and more of and it it is obviously something on everyone’s mind right now.
Beyond the basic questions of: Am I using the right type of soap? Am I washing my hands too much or too little? Should I treat my jewelry with special care during all these washings?
This idea of contamination on jewelry and the effects of hand sanitizer on gem stones in jewelry caused us to look further for information outside of our own test results.
We discovered that it is “reasonable to assume that bacteria and viruses can exist on any type of jewelry.” It is also our knowledge that micro-debris of food and other proteins such as microscopic skin particles get nestled deep in the jewelry’s fishers and crevices. These particles feed colonies of bacteria which lead to the bacteria developing their own protective biofilm that only high intense heat, physical scraping or a probiotic can remove.
What Does The Doctor Have To Say?
Dr. Robert Lahita, the chairman of medicine and vice president of the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center told Fox News, “I’m very much aware that a lot of the rings people wear are dirty or are contaminated with bacteria,”. “Dirt, skin and oil accumulate, and when you wash with soap and water, it doesn’t get all the matter off.”
According to Lahita, everything from food to fecal matter can come into contact with your jewelry, making it even riskier to refrain from regular cleaning. “It can be a major concern,” he says.
What Does The Professor Have To Say?
“Use common sense”, says, Lucy Wilson, a professor in the department of emergency health services at the University of Maryland Baltimore County as she spoke to HuffPost.
The professor recommends removing your jewelry all together during this time of heavy hand-washing because ultimately we don’t want to stop washing our hands as it’s one of our greatest defenses during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Be sure to wash around and under your jewelry worn on your hands and arms.
Another critical remark the professor mentions is, “If rings are contaminated and you pop them back on after washing your hands, you’ve now recontaminated your hands,”. “If you’re not going to disinfect your rings, you shouldn’t be taking them off and putting them back on.”
Wilson pointed out that studies show health care workers who remove their rings and scrub them are able to get bacteria off.
Lets Now Hear From A Professional Jewelry Historian.
However, there are those jewelry pieces which are made of materials that you may not want to consider wearing altogether during a hand-washing. During an interview with Jamie Feldman of the Huffington Post, Jewelry historian Elizabeth Doyle, who co-owns antique jewelry boutique Doyle and Doyle in New York City, shared some insight about which materials just can’t weather all the hand-washing and sanitizing we’re all (hopefully) doing at the moment.”
Organic gems made of coral or pearl should not be exposed to hand sanitizers. Surfaces of gems lose their luster and begin cracking when exposed to the incredibly high levels of alcohol found in the everyday hand sanitizer. The more porous type gem stones such as turquoise and opals are also not safe to expose to the invasive chemicals of a hand sanitizer.
Team Protekt’s Summary
We know that during the time of high use of hand sanitizers, the hands will always become dry and crack. This is primarily due to the excessive levels of alcohol found in off the shelf hand sanitizers (Not Ours). This drying is a dead giveaway that the skins microflora has been killed. The microflora is your skins protective layer of enzyms, acids, oils and bacteria. In addition to drying, the skin breaks open and allows access to pathogens to move deeper into the skins layers and closer to your blood stream.
Adding a hand lotion is the remedy to this artificial drying but a lotion can be destructive in several ways. One such way is that the lotion in this case will build up in jewelry and provide a protective barrier and often times a food source as there are constructive proteins in moisturizers. Feeding and housing pathogens in your ring will cause your jewelry to be a source of contamination for anything that lives in and on it to gain easy access to your body.
When in doubt, head to the sink.
“The best, safest way to keep your jewelry clean and looking its best is to wash it using a mild dish soap,” Doyle says.
Our studies here at Protekt have shown that the All-Purpose cleaner when used as a jewelry bath (at any mix ratio) for a couple of hours not only cleans all the tiny pockets of grime (biofilm) off the jewelry but it also dramatically increases the shine of the gems and metals without any dulling or adverse side effects. It’s all due to the work of the living probiotics inside of our All-Purpose cleaning solution. No alcohol in the solution, just non-toxic ingredients and a ton of good living bacteria (probiotic) waiting to do their natural job. You’ll also find that by using the Kalos Probiotic Misting Wand on your jewelry as you wear it will keep your jewelry cleaner and more brilliant long between thorough soakings. It’s also good for your skin while keeping your hands clean and protekt’ed.