The Tiny Cloths That Keep My Jewelry Sparkling

Much in the same way I used to wear much more makeup before I moved to the PNW, I also used to wear a lot more jewelry. I had a drawer in my dresser where I kept all my baubles, nice and organized and easily accessible. Now, I have one small box on top of my dresser, with a few simple pieces, and the rest is in a distant closet in this perfect stackable system. One thing I didn’t realize about rarely wearing jewelry is that while your trinkets are waiting in their little cubbies for you to take them out and wear them, they’re getting dingy and tarnished and dull. I’d pull out a ring that I used to wear all the time, and find that it was looking rough. I had a jewelry polishing cloth that I used every once in awhile, but it was massive, and I didn’t know how to take care of it (do I wash it once it’s covered in jewelry debris? Or toss it?). I’d pull it out when I really needed to spruce up a piece, but I needed a more convenient solution.

These little jewelry polishing cloths are probably meant for people selling jewelry to include in their packaging (I have received one of these exact cloths with an Etsy order), but they’re also great for personal use. They come individually packaged, but that just means you can stuff them in a suitcase or a glove box or a dresser drawer and not worry about them getting dirty. I use one until I’m struggling to find any pink left on the cloth, so they’re necessarily not single use. They’re super thin, so you can get in all the little nooks and crannies of your grubby looking jewels.

Here is a ring that was in my tiny dresser jewelry box for who knows how long. (I’m fairly sure it’s sterling silver, but I either got it at a flea market or from my mom’s jewelry box from the 70s so I don’t really know anything about it.)

These polishing cloths are super thin, which makes it easy to polish hard to reach areas, and in the case of a ring, you can use the cloth and your finger to give you some stability, and even polish the inside.

And here’s the ring and cloth after. The ring is shiny and good as new, and the polishing cloth isnt’ even that dirty. It can definitely be used a few more times. I tend to keep one of these cloths in my tiny jewelry box, and ten or so in a nearby dresser drawer so I can replace my in-use cloth easily. These come in a pack of 50 individually wrapped 3” square cloths, and I imagine I won’t run out for a decade.