How to Clean Silver Jewelry 

how to clean silver jewelrySave your silver jewelry from looking like your grandmother’s antique spoon collection: tarnished and ignored. That ugly brassy color comes from the silver’s exposure to moisture and the oxidation process. Thankfully, help is on the way, in the form of a few household items that will give your jewelry a natural, organic cleaning. This cleaning process takes the tarnish off of your silver goods by making it adhere to another surface (in this case, aluminum). This simple routine will help you learn how to clean silver jewelry and add some sparkle in no time.

What You’ll Need

You’ll need a towel, a soft cloth, aluminum foil, baking soda, a wood utensil, a glass dish and a pot of boiling water.

Set

Tear an aluminum foil piece large enough to fit in the glass pan and crinkle it slightly. Then place it in the pan and lay all the jewelry on the piece of foil, ensuring each piece of jewelry fully touches the aluminum.

Sprinkle

Take the baking soda and dust a light layer over the jewelry. This is the key agent that prompts the tarnish to bind to the aluminum instead of your silver jewelry.

Pour and Swish

Immerse the silver pieces fully by slowly pouring the boiling water into the pan. You’ll see some bubbling and smell something rotten, but don’t worry, that’s just the cleaning process releasing some sulfur. This is when the tarnish is pulled from the silver and onto the aluminum. There won’t be any damage to the jewelry.

Swirl

Gently move each of the silver pieces around with the wooden utensil to make sure each side touches the aluminum. Don’t use a metal utensil that might interrupt the cleaning process or a plastic piece that could melt in the boiling water.

Rinse

Carefully remove each piece of jewelry out of the pan rinse. Consider using a strainer to ensure you don’t lose any pieces in the drain.

Dry and Polishsilver spinner ring

Pat each piece dry with the towel and buff with the soft cloth.

Following this homemade process has taught you how to clean your silver jewelry using all natural items, and now you can enjoy a fresh shine for your jewelry any time.

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Category: Jewelry Care, Jewelry Guide, Silver Jewelry

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