Enamel jewellery: what the colour actually is, and how to look after it

Enamel is the 1 thing in the workshop that cannot be hurried. Every enamel piece on this site carries the same line at the foot of its listing: enamel products are not available for 5 days speedy delivery. The Knotted Enamel Bangle asks for up to 10 working days. That is not a stock problem. It is what colour costs in time.

I have made jewellery by hand in London for 22 years. It started on a stall on Portobello Road, and the pieces have since sat in Liberty, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. The bench has not moved much. Neither has the patience enamel asks for.

Enamel is not paint, and 2 different things are sold under the same word

Fired enamel, the old way. Writing in The Jewellery Editor on 5 October 2022, Claire Roberts set out how vitreous enamel is made: a very fine glass powder is combined with metal oxides, which add the colour, then sifted dry onto the metal or packed wet into cut channels. "After application, the powder is heated until it softens and flows." The kiln runs at roughly 750 to 850°C, and depth is built up over several firings. Red is the hardest colour to get right. That is where the old technique names come from: cloisonné, where thin metal strips are soldered down to make cells that are then filled; champlevé, where grooves are cut into the metal first; plique-à-jour, which has no backing at all, so light comes through it like a window; and guilloché, translucent layers laid over an engraved pattern.

Hand painted enamel, which is what most coloured jewellery really is. The other family is cold enamel: a pigmented resin, layered on or poured into a cavity, which sets hard without a kiln and is then filed back and polished. Roberts is straight about the trade off. It is quicker and easier to apply, and it will not match fired glass for depth or iridescence.

Anna Lou pieces are the hand painted kind, and the listings say so. That matters for 2 reasons. The range of colour is far wider, which is why a bangle can be had in sunshine yellow or navy blue. And it goes on by hand, 1 colour at a time, so no 2 pieces come out identical, and it cannot be pushed through in 5 days.

The piece that shows it best

The Signet Personalised Enamel Initial Ring is £175 in sterling silver, £215 in gold or rose gold vermeil, and £850 in 14kt solid yellow or white gold. Your initial sits in colour on the flat face of a signet, which is the 1 place on the hand you look at all day. A signet has to fit rather than hang, so measure properly first with the ring size guide.

What I notice about coloured pieces is who buys them. It is rarely the first piece anyone owns. It tends to be the fourth or the fifth, bought by somebody who already has the plain gold letter and now wants something that looks like her rather than like everybody. Colour reads across a room at a distance a 1cm silver disc never will.

2 more ways in

For colour without much outlay, the Red Puffed Heart is £60: a handmade sterling silver heart, 1.5cm, hand painted in red, hung on an adjustable cord. For a name rather than a shape, the Multi Coloured Enamel Cube Necklace is £90 in sterling silver and takes 1 to 8 letters, each cube a colour you pick, on a 16in or 18in chain. Read the chain guide before you choose the length, because 2in changes where it sits. In between sits the Knotted Enamel Bangle at £150, in black, pink, sunshine yellow or navy blue. At the top is the T-Bar Enamel Initial Necklace, £225 in sterling silver, £275 in vermeil, £1,750 in 14kt solid gold. If colour turns out not to be the thing at all, the plain Alphabet Letter Necklace is £42.50.

3 things take enamel off, and none of them is wear

A silver dip, which attacks the setting round the colour. An ultrasonic cleaner, which works the edges loose. And a knock against a hard edge, because glass and cured resin both chip rather than dent. Warm water, 1 drop of washing up liquid, a soft brush, patted dry and left to air. Nothing stronger.

Old enamel is a different matter

Victorian and Art Deco pieces often carry fired enamel that has worn thin or lost a section, and the honest answer is that matching a colour laid down 100 years ago is rarely possible. What can be done is to keep the part worth keeping. That is what Second Life Jewellery is for: the stones and the gold out of a piece nobody wears, remade by hand in the London studio into something that gets worn. A photograph is enough for a free estimate. Odd earrings, a broken chain and a chipped locket can go in together and come back as 1 piece. If something is past saving and you only want the metal back, recycling your jewellery is the other door.

The second life is the real one. Every coloured piece made by hand here sits in enamel jewellery, and the ones that work best as presents are gathered in the Christmas gift guide.

Questions people ask

Is enamel jewellery hard wearing enough for every day?

Yes, with 1 caveat. Enamel does not fade or tarnish, so it ages better than plating, but it chips if it takes a sharp knock, and a silver dip or an ultrasonic cleaner will lift it at the edges. A ring takes more knocks than a pendant, so if you are rough on your hands, start with a necklace from enamel jewellery rather than a signet.

Can you get enamel on solid gold rather than silver?

Yes. The enamel signet ring is made in 14kt solid yellow or white gold at £850, and the T-Bar Enamel Initial Necklace in 14kt solid gold at £1,750. Solid gold is worth it where a piece is worn daily for decades, because there is no plating to wear through underneath the colour.

My grandmother's enamel brooch is chipped. Can it be repaired?

Usually not invisibly. Old fired enamel is glass, and a new firing next to an old one rarely matches. The better route is a free estimate from a photograph through Second Life Jewellery, which lifts the stones and the gold and remakes them by hand, so the piece gets worn instead of sitting in a drawer with a chip in it.