Gemstone Education

Should I Buy an Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner or a Jewelry Steam Cleaner?

We’ve all dealt with gemstones or jewelry that just seems to lose its shine after a while. Cleaning your gems or jewelry by hand can take forever and they still won’t have their old sparkle back. There are solutions for this and today we compare two of the best known and easiest of them all:

The ultrasonic jewelry cleaner and the jewelry steam cleaner. These are often used by professional jewelry cleaners. But why pay them when it can easily be done by yourself in your own home?

The Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner: Cheap and Very Effective

Ultrasonic cleaners are one of the most popular ways to clean gemstones and jewelry. Ultrasonic cleaning uses ultrasonic waves and jewelry cleaner to create bubbles. These bubbles stick to things like oil, dirt and remains of beauty products. Once the bubbles have settled on your jewelry the sonic cleaner sends out waves that pull the bubbles, including the dirt, from your items.

A number of different cleaning products are used in the ultrasonic cleaner. But usually regular jewelry cleaner is used. Once the cleaning is done you should rinse the gemstones or jewelry to remove any leftover cleaning product.

The Jewelry Steam Cleaner an Eco-Friendly Jewelry Cleaning Machine

Another solution is the jewelry steam cleaner. Easy and cheap to operate as well as environmentally safe, no chemicals are used in the process. Just plain old water.

The steam cleaner does have a few drawbacks. Some gemstones, such as opals, can’t take the heat of the steam cleaner. No glass, dyed, glued or porous gemstones should be cleaned either.

For both the ultrasonic cleaner and the steam cleaner you should make sure your gemstone or jewelry is suitable. Porous stones, such as pearls, opals and amber should not be cleaned by these machines. Jewelry using glue should not be cleaned either as the glue can weaken.

Before you start using your cleaner check your jewelry for loose gemstones. If you don’t notice a missing gemstone you might accidentally throw it away afterwards!

Which Jewelry Cleaner Should I Buy?

The steam cleaner is a good jewelry cleaner for everyday use. However the price for a quality steam cleaner starts at around $200. Which is simply too much when you compare it to the ultrasonic cleaner as they can be bought for around $25!

In our opinion the ultrasonic cleaner is the better solution. It can easily clean jewelry and even the lower priced ones have amazing results. Click on one of the links below to buy some of the best ultrasonic jewelry cleaners on the market. We suggest adding a packet of jewelry cleaner as well for even better results.

As you can see the ultrasonic cleaner is a high quality product for an amazing price. It will literally save you hundreds of dollars in cleaning costs at your local jeweler.

Gem Coach

1 Comment

  1. Robert Below
    April 18, 2014 at 4:59 pm — Reply

    Unless it’s plated then the ultrasonic will destroy the jewelry. The best jewelry cleaner I’ve seen and have used is a steamshine unit. No chemicals just steam. Best cleaning I’ve ever seen

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