10 Tips for Maintaining your Luxury Watch
For all of its benefits – from elegance and innovation to expert craftsmanship and frequent compliments – owning a luxury watch also comes with a few responsibilities. Like any fine piece of jewelry, your watch requires care, attention to detail, and some occasional maintenance. Knowing what to do is critical to the life of your watch. Conversely, understanding what you should avoid doing has the potential to save you time and money.
At Porsamo Bleu, we love all things watch-related – from beautiful timepieces to the people who wear them. If you’re not sure how to care for your favorite watch or simply want to make sure you’re doing it right, we can help. This helpful guide will walk you through everything you need to know, so dive in and feel free to share this with your watch-loving friends. Here are the top 10 things you should know for maintaining your luxury watch.
Clean Your Watch as Often as Possible
Your watch is a magnet for small particles like dust, and it holds on to oil and smudges from your fingertips and skin. In order to protect your watch’s case and bracelet, a helpful practice is to wipe it down with a dry microfiber cloth after each wear. A microfiber cloth – sometimes sold as a jeweler’s cloth or a stainless steel cleaning cloth – effectively removes the foreign substances that, over time, deteriorate the look and function of your timepiece.
Unlike a ring that can be dipped into a cleaning solution, we don’t recommend bringing your watch into sustained contact with any of these products. Should an accident happen – imagine a glass of wine is spilled over dinner and your watch is either stained or left with a sticky residue – it may be necessary to wet just the corner of a microfiber cloth with a few drops of soap and warm water. Clean only the affected area, then dry immediately.
Service Regularly
If regular cleanings have slipped your mind or if one or more of your watch’s functions doesn’t seem to be working as well as it once did, consider taking it to a trusted jeweler or certified watch repair person for evaluation and service. Not only will regular service prolong the life and maintain the value of your watch, but it also serves as an opportunity to prevent a more costly problem in the future. What’s typically included in the servicing or regular maintenance of your watch? Here is a brief checklist of what you can expect:
- Disassembly – beginning with the bracelet or strap, your watch is taken apart meticulously in order to examine each component and feature
- Cleaning – even if you’ve consistently wiped your watch down, the cleanings that take place during service remove build-up your microfiber cloth can’t reach
Avoid Magnets
Your luxury watch is a precision instrument – keeping things like seconds, minutes, hours, and dates with perfect accuracy. Because of that, some surprisingly small things can interfere with its function. As an example, we only need to look as far as the magnets that may be in your home right now. Refrigerator magnets may be the first thing that comes to mind, but they aren’t the only source. Your AirPods include magnets, as do hard drives, guitar amps, and bicycle dynamos – the devices that use human energy to power electronic components on some bikes – all contain small but powerful magnets.
Avoid storing your watch on top of or near anything that may contain a magnet, and certainly any device that utilizes an electrical motor. If your watch has either sped up or is running slow, it may be due to magnetization. Good news! This isn’t a permanent condition, and your local jeweler or watch repair person will certainly have a demagnetizing machine that can correct the problem within a few hours’ time.
Know Your Watch’s Water Resistance
Trust us: nothing will ruin your watch faster than plunging it underneath the water – even for a short period of time. Here at Porsamo Bleu, we’ve heard some horror stories:
Momentarily forgetting your watch was on during a child’s bathtime;
Dropping it in a pool or sink;
…and more than a few incidents with beaches, boats, and bodies of water.
Despite each of our best efforts, accidents still happen. If you aren’t positive about what the water-resistance rating on your watch is, now is the perfect time to find out. Before allowing your watch to come into contact with water, consult your owner’s manual for detailed specifications about what is acceptable. When in doubt, err on the side of caution, especially if you really love your watch.
NOTE: At Porsamo Bleu, we realize you may not always remember to take your watch off, and we understand that, at some point or another, your watch may get wet. That’s why many of our most popular models offer 50 meters of water-resistance standard. It’s just one more way we build elegant watches that stand the test of time.
Take Care of the Crystal
One element of a luxury watch is a sapphire crystal. Sometimes referred to as the window or glass, the crystal protects your watch’s dial – the surface of the watch below the hands. Dials, of course, can come in a variety of colors, and some are even beautifully engraved. The hands, hour markers, and a variety of other functions are all protected by the crystal.
As opposed to glass (which would inevitably shatter) or plastic (which would eventually crack or become discolored), luxury watchmakers opt for sapphire crystal because of its renowned durability as well as its sparkling clarity.
Through the life of your watch, the crystal will often bear the brunt of scuffs, scratches, and dings. Remember: sapphire is almost as hard as diamond. Most of the impact your crystal receives can be buffed out with a microfiber cloth or cleaned during regular maintenance. Even deeper scratches can be repaired with the skillful use of a grinder. If you ever have to go this route, make sure you’re working with a professional you can trust.
Keep Your Watch Box for Storage
When you purchase a luxury watch, there’s often a special two-for-one advantage that everyone isn’t aware of. What are we talking about? The box your watch came in, of course!
Luxury watch boxes – like the beautiful blue box that houses our Florentina Diamond Women’s Stainless Steel Watch – aren’t designed to be discarded. Instead, they’re perfect for protecting your watch while you’re not wearing it. Storing your watch on a dresser, nightstand, or in a drawer makes loss and damage all the more likely. And if you – like so many of our customers – have more than one favorite watch, your original box is the ideal storage compartment for each piece in your collection.
So remember: hold onto your watch box and put it to use. If your watch isn’t on your wrist, it may as well be in its box. You’ll be glad you did.
Avoid Extended Exposure to Sunlight
In many ways, your luxury watch is like a well-oiled machine – literally. Lubricants are used during construction to ensure that the internal mechanisms and movements of the watch are free to turn as intended. Sunlight, as you might imagine, has the ability to dry out your watch, resulting in poor function and eventually damage.
Another potential issue – especially with prolonged exposure to the sun’s heat – is surface damage. Although some wear to any painted elements in your watch – think specifically about the bezel, the dial, or the watch hands themselves – can be expected over time, sunlight will exacerbate that.
In order to keep your watch in pristine condition, remember to protect it from the sun. If you wear your watch to the pool, a day at the beach, or a weekend at the lake, make sure your watch is stored in a cool, dark space. Extreme temperatures, especially from heat and light, will deteriorate your watch over time.
Avoid Contact with Chemicals
This one may seem obvious, but the list of potentially harmful chemicals is longer than you might think. As you can imagine, household cleaners – especially spray that leaves a fine mist in the air – can settle on and in your watch, and harsher chemicals like stain removers can dry nearly solid within minutes.
From discoloring your watch’s crystal to stripping the band or bracelet, chemicals and certain cleaners can do damage that even your favorite jeweler will have a difficult time undoing.
While gloves can be worn as protection, our recommendation is simply to remove your watch. It isn’t worth irreparable damage. Better to practice an abundance of caution than risk ruining your favorite watch.
NOTE: Again, if you must use a solution to clean the exterior of your watch, make sure to only use the smallest possible amount of warm water. If for some reason soap is necessary, limit use to just a few drops. Drying immediately after cleaning is imperative in order to prevent rust.
Never Open Your Watch By Yourself
The internet is wonderful. In fact, without it, you wouldn’t have access to this guide, and we would have an impossible time sharing it with everyone who might like to read it. But at the same time, the internet presents the potential for issues. One, in particular, impacts luxury watches and their owners more than you might think. That’s right: instructional videos that encourage people to open up their own watches. We don’t recommend trying.
Most luxury watch owners never consider removing the back of their watch, but then something – curiosity, a desire to fix something themselves, or the thought that, perhaps, a new battery is in order – gets the best of them. There’s no shortage of videos on the internet that provide some instruction, even if one doesn’t have all the tools, the training, or an understanding of watch mechanics.
Here’s the bottom line: opening your watch by yourself isn’t guaranteed to end in frustration or damage to your watch. Everything may work out well, and you will accomplish what you set out to do. At the same time, your watch – especially if it is valuable to you and you’d like to hold on to it for years to come – is much safer in the trusted hands of someone with the expertise to care for it properly. Can you learn on your own? Perhaps. Is it worth the hassle and risk of damage? We don’t think so.
Read Your Watch Manual
There’s a reason luxury watchmakers like Porsamo Bleu include manuals and user instructions with our products. It’s because we want you to know how to use each and every function, how to care for and protect your timepiece, and who to contact if something isn’t right.
Some of our most popular models – like the Dylan Men’s Watch with its distinctive green leather band – have multiple functions. Without knowing how each function works, you aren’t able to experience all your watch has to offer. Learning how to set the time is important, of course, but what about the date, other time zones, or the 24-hour hand? Each feature serves a purpose, and you deserve to know how to use them all.
Your owner’s manual is the best source of all this information and more. As with every watch we make, we’re committed to being available to help you in the event of an accident or question – no matter what’s happened or is on your mind. Let us know how we can help!
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When you choose a Porsamo Bleu, you’re choosing the very best. There’s a commitment to craftsmanship in every watch we create, and now it’s your turn to find out. Shop one of our retail partners now and experience the Porsamo Bleu difference for yourself!
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