Whether it’s diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, gold, silver, or even the more modern popular stones such as morganite and moonstone, these pieces are loved for their sparkle.
After years of wear, though, that sparkle can lose its luster. Jewelry that’s frequently worn gets dirt, grime, and oil build-up fairly easily. You may not even notice that your jewelry has dulled until you clean it.
While it may seem easier to take your jewelry straight back to the jewelry store for a professional cleaning, with a small investment, you can clean your own jewelry at home and have it looking like new again.
All you need is a jewelry cleaner! There are several types of jewelry cleaners, but one specific type is a steam jewelry cleaner. These are the most eco-friendly and are easy to use.
So, what is the best steam jewelry cleaner? The best steam jewelry cleaner has high pressure for optimal cleaning, works on a variety of jewelry types, and is a convenient size and capacity for your purposes, whether that’s at home or in a professional setting.
With just 5-15 minutes of steam, your jewelry can look like new again. If you’re ready to see your jewels sparkle like new, keep reading to learn more about how you can steam clean your jewelry right at home.
How Does A Steam Jewelry Cleaner Work?
When it comes to a machine jewelry cleaner, there are two main types used: steam and ultrasonic. Steam cleaners work by using highly pressurized steam to blast away any dirt, grime, and oil build-up.
Because it’s using scalding hot steam, it also burns and blasts away most germs and bacteria. Your jewelry won’t just look clean, it’ll actually be clean.
Steam jewelry cleaners don’t use any chemical cleaners, so they’re more eco-friendly too. While you can use some chemical cleaner before you steam clean to get a higher shine, many users report that this extra step isn’t necessary.
Just the steam alone provides a significant clean that has your jewelry sparkling like new.
Ultrasonic jewelry cleaners work by using sound waves. Your jewelry is submerged in water that’s been mixed with chemical cleaning solution. The sound waves create bubbles around the jewelry that scrub away the dirt, grime, and oil build-up.
Ultrasonic cleaners work great too, but you have to use chemical cleaner for best results. If you’d rather not have chemicals coating your jewelry, then a steam cleaner is the best choice for you.
Steam jewelry cleaners aren’t just for jewelry wearers and owners. If you’re a crafter who makes jewelry for a living and sells these, you want to ensure your gems and crystals are in top sparkling condition.
So whether you want a steam jewelry cleaner for your own personal use, or to ensure your handmade products are in top shape, you’ll definitely find use for one of these in your home.
Tips For Using Steam Jewelry Cleaner
When you start reading reviews for steam jewelry cleaners online, you may find a solid mix of good and bad reviews. Typically, the bad reviews are coming from people who haven’t used and maintained their machine correctly.
A good tip for using a steam jewelry cleaner is to ensure you use distilled water. Some product listings may say that tap water is okay, but tap water comes with a lot of added minerals.
For best results, we recommend using distilled water. It’s also important to remember that you need to let the machine cool down in between cleaning cycles.
Most home steam jewelry cleaners are meant for small amounts of jewelry cleaning, so one or two sessions per day is recommended as the maximum limit.
After completing a cleaning cycle and allowing the machine to cool down, dump all leftover water that may remain in the water reservoir. Leaving water in the machine is one thing that can lead to leakage down the line. It’s best to keep the machine empty when not in use.
Choosing Steam Jewelry Cleaners
Steam jewelry cleaners range in price anywhere from $40-1,000. This is a pretty wide range, so it’s important that you truly understand what you’re buying before you spend your money.
To help you choose the best machine for you, make sure you find one that has the 3 qualities we list below.
1. High Pressure
The point of steam cleaning is to allow the pressurized steam to blast away any dirt, grime, and oil build-up.
This build-up comes from a variety of sources. Most people don’t realize that continual use of jewelry means that substances like soap, lotion, shampoo, body oils, and dust will cover their sparkling jewels.
For the steam cleaning to be effective enough to blast off years of this build-up, it has to be highly pressurized.
Most high quality steam jewelry cleaners come with a psi rating of 50-55. Psi refers to pounds per square inch of force. So with 50 psi, your jewelry is being blasted with 50 pounds of force per square inch.
If that isn’t enough, some jewelry steam cleaners come with multiple steam jets, each one with a rating of around 50 psi. When combined, your jewelry is being blasted with around 150 psi.
The pressure is just as important as the steam when it comes to a jewelry steam cleaner. If all you needed as steam in the air, you could run a hot shower and hold your jewelry in the bathroom with the door closed.
This wouldn’t work, though, because you don’t have the pressure. For a steam jewelry cleaner to work effectively without any chemical cleaning solution, it has to have a high pressure rating.
2. Works For Variety Of Jewelry
No one cleaning method works for every type of jewelry. Gemstones, although pretty, are just rocks. It’s important to remember that because each rock will have its own hardness rating.
There are certain gemstones and precious metals that are soft and can’t stand up to the high pressure of steam cleaning. For those, you may want to look into alternatives. Their softness may mean chemicals won’t work either, so you may have to try something else.
For most standard jewelry, though, a steam cleaner should be just the fix. When you’re shopping for a steam jewelry cleaner, you need to ensure that it will work for a wide variety of jewelry.
Silver, gold, titanium, platinum, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, aquamarine, and more are examples of jewelry you should be able to steam clean.
Emerald, for example, should never be steam cleaned because it has a poor toughness rating. As you read the product description, make sure it will work for all the types of jewelry that you own and hope to clean.
If you’re a jewelry maker, ensure that your steam jewelry cleaner will work for all the types of jewelry that you work with and sell. If you’re unsure, you can always do a quick search online for your specific jewelry to see if it’s safe to steam clean.
Don’t try to steam clean it if it’s not rated as being safe for that type of cleaning. Instead, follow whatever alternative cleaning guidelines are provided or bring it to a professional.
3. Convenient Size And Capacity
Our society today is overrun by appliances. It seems like we have small appliances for everything: air fryers, rice cookers, microwaves, humidifiers, and more.
When shopping for a steam jewelry cleaner, it’s important to check the dimensions and ensure that it’s a convenient size that will fit on your counter or in your closet.
Most steam jewelry cleaners come in a smaller size because they’re meant for lower capacities, but make sure this will work for your purposes and your space.
If you plan to clean a large amount of jewelry, or even just larger pieces of jewelry, then you’ll need to look for a steam cleaner with a large capacity and larger cleaning space.
The steam jewelry cleaners usually come with a mesh basket to catch any jewelry if it falls, as well as a pair of tweezers to hold the jewelry under the steam jet.
If you plan to clean larger pieces that would be difficult, or impossible, to hold up with a set of tweezers, then take this into account. Find a steam cleaner that uses a different process for cleaning to allow for a higher capacity.
The 7 Best Steam Jewelry Cleaners
Now that you understand the basics of steam jewelry cleaners and have some top qualities to look for, you’re ready to buy!
Review our list below of our top recommended products for steam jewelry cleaners. Each of this will do a great job, with proper use and maintenance, to clean your jewelry and have it look sparkling new.
1. Steamfast JULE Steam Jewelry Cleaner
The Steamfast SF-1000 JULE cleaner is a top-notch option for those looking for something smaller and more affordable.
Even though this is the cheapest model on our list, it’s worth a lot more than that. It has a 58 psi steam jet that blasts away build-up of grime, dirt, oil, and more.
It comes with a polish cloth, tweezers, and a measuring cup to ensure the proper amount of water is used. There’s a basket underneath the jet stream to collect the moisture build-up and catch your jewelry if you lose your grip.
It heats up in just 4 minutes and runs a 15-minute cleaning cycle to ensure your jewelry is sparkling like the day you bought it.
2. Gemoro BrilliantSpa Pro Deluxe Personal Jewelry Steam Cleaner
The Gemoro BrilliantSpa Pro is another fantastic option. This steam cleaner also has tweezers and a mesh basket underneath the jet stream.
Speaking of the jet stream, this machine has 3 of them. Each jet has a 55 psi to give you a total of 165 psi steam power!
Because this one operates on such high pressure, it cleans your jewelry in bursts rather than one continuous stream.
It’s easy to use and will have your jewelry looking like new in no time.
3. Gemoro Black Diamond Brilliant Spa Personal Sized Black Matte Steam Cleaner
The Gemoro Brilliant Spa Black Diamond edition is another great option.
Like the ones before it, this model has a mesh basket underneath the steam jet and is easy to use.
The steam jet operates at 50 psi, plenty to give your jewelry a thorough cleaning.
It has easy to read indicator lights on top that tell you when the machine is heated up and ready for use, and when it’s in the middle of a cleaning cycle.
This model is also available in grey.
4. Gemoro UltraSpa Dual Ultrasonic And Steamer Jewelry Cleaner
The Gemoro Ultra Spa is our final Gemoro model on the list, but you can probably guess that it’s going to be another good one.
It has a 1 pint tank and 50 psi rating on the steam jet. Its cleaning cycle only runs for 6 minutes.
As with previous models, you can hold your jewelry under the steam with tweezers and there’s a mesh basket underneath just in case it falls.
The top door is clear so you can quickly and easily see how much water you have left in case a refill is needed.
5. FLYHERO Jewelry Cleaner Steam Cleaning Machine
The FLYHERO jewelry steam cleaner is a little different from the previous models listed. This one operates with a foot pedal and has a steam spout, but no basket underneath.
It does, however, have a small beaker you can line up underneath the steam spout in place of the mesh basket.
It has a bit of a higher psi than some of the other machines, running at around 56 psi.
Though it may not look as sleek as some of the others, it works great to clean your jewelry and make it sparkle like never before.
6. Lifancy 2022 Jewelry Cleaner Machine
The Lifancy 2022 jewelry cleaner machine will look very similar to the model above from FLYHERO.
It operates the same way, with a steam spout that you’ll have to line up your beaker underneath and no mesh basket.
It also runs at 56 psi, which provides plenty of pressure to steam clean your jewelry sufficiently.
It even comes with a water monitoring system that warns you if you have too much water added or reminds you when you have no water added.
7. Reliable Dental Steam Cleaner
The final option is the most expensive, but it’s also the most heavy-duty. We recommend this model for someone who needs to clean a lot of jewelry on a regular basis, like a jeweler.
It comes with a hand-held steam gun that operates at about 50 psi. Unlike the other models that can only do one or two cleaning cycles before they need a break, this machine can run for up to 4 hours.
You even have a dial on the side that shows your current psi so you can keep an eye on your current pressure.
It’s originally intended for dental cleaning, but it works just as great with jewelry.
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