How to: Clean and Organize a Velvet Jewelry Box

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been looking at your dusty, pet fur-covered jewelry box with disdain for a while now.  The reason for the disdain; not knowing how to clean velvet.  That’s right; velvet.  A lot of jewelry boxes are lined with velvet and are a bit trickier to clean than typical cloth surfaces.  Paper towels shred and leave lint behind, a lint roller can’t clean the grooves usually reserved for rings, and feather dusters are completely useless against embedded dust and hair.  The following steps will help guide you through cleaning a velvet jewelry box.

Step 1: Remove everything

This step is as easy as it sounds.  Your jewelry box should be completely empty

Step 2: Organize your jewelry

I’ve sorted my goods into the following categories: Chain belts; long, medium, and short necklaces; body jewelry (IE: belly button rings, barbells, etc); stud earrings, long earrings, hoops; bangles, charm bracelets, chain bracelets; watches; charms and rings. 

Laying them out like so makes it easier to recognize how much of each you have and how much space you need for each category of jewelry.

Step 3: Clean your box!

The easiest way to clean velvet is with a warm, moist cloth.  Unless you’ve got stains embedded in your jewelry box, a cleaning solution isn’t really needed on such delicate fabric.  Wiping your velvet down with a moist cloth will work to remove most/all of the dirt, dust, and hair that’s made its way into your jewelry box.   If you’ve gone over every surface and you’ve still got a few stray hairs or dust particles hanging around, simply rinse your cloth and repeat the wipe down.  If your box needs deodorizing, any fabric freshening spray (such as Febreeze) works great.

Step 4: Refill your jewelry box

This step can be considered the most difficult if you’re challenged by judging spaces and proportions.  I used the drawer space for longer necklaces and belts, and I grouped them together by color.  I used the hooks for long earrings and shorter necklaces, and used the top space for small, easy t lose items such as stud earrings, rings, charms, body jewelry, bracelets, and hoop earrings.  I made sure to keep the jewelry I use daily visible and stored the fancier stuff I use less often.