Can you wear a tennis bracelet every day?

Short answer: yes, and that is rather the point of one. A tennis bracelet is designed to be worn, not kept. But daily wear is not the same as constant wear, and two habits do most of the damage.

Take it off to swim

Chlorine attacks plating and salt water is not much kinder. A pool or the ocean is the fastest way to dull a bright white finish. This is the single most worthwhile habit to form.

Take it off to sleep

Not for the bracelet's sake alone — though a clasp grinding against bedding for eight hours a night wears faster than a day at a desk — but because sleeping in a tennis bracelet is how clasps get caught and bent. If you only change one thing, change this one.

Everything else is fine

Showering with it on is largely harmless, though soap film dulls the stones and you will want to rinse it. Washing up, typing, driving, carrying bags: all fine. A well-made bracelet with a safety catch is not fragile.

The order of operations

Jewellery goes on last and comes off first. Perfume, hairspray, sunscreen and moisturiser all sit on the surface of a plated piece and none of them do it any good. Let them dry, then put the bracelet on.

Cleaning it

Warm water, a drop of plain dish soap, a soft toothbrush, and dry it properly with a soft cloth. Skip the ultrasonic cleaner and skip silver dip — dips are formulated to strip tarnish from bare silver and will go after your plating too.

Done this way, a plated bracelet stays bright for years. When it eventually does dull at the clasp, any jeweller can re-plate it — we have written about what that involves.