A little guide to help those of you who wear rings, in particular, with soft gemstones like Amber, Coral and Pearls.  Always take your jewelry off before bathing, doing dishes and never go into the swimming pool with jewels with these stones in particular!  The chorine can damage the organic nature of the materials to the point of replacement, which can be more costly than what you paid for the piece orginally.  Also, it's best to remove your jewelry before contact of any solutions as the chemicals in cleaners, chlorines, and bleach *can* affect the alloys in the gold and silver.  While it won't hurt the actual properties of gold, it can affect the alloys which make up the rest of the jewelry, which have been known to turn black and cause many unattractive problems.  You can take your piece to be professionally polished, however.  Most jewelers will offer this service for free or for a nominal charge.

A quality polishing cloth will help keep your jewelry looking bright and shiny in the interim!

I hope this helps a bit. I've had some folks, in the past, come in for repairs wondering why their favorite ring, with their grandmother's pearl inset, suddenly became dull and/or dissolved.  These could be some of the reasons if the stone is genuine.