Safest and Easiest Way to Clean Silver Jewelry
August 18, 2010 by
Filed under Silver Jewelry
Recently my sister-in-law’s grandmother passed away and she was left with a rather large collection of antique silver jewelry. The collection included a number of different pieces that were considerably tarnished and while some were enhanced by the presence of the tarnish some needed to have it removed in order to shine up to their full potential.
The pieces that were enhanced by the tarnish were those that had intricate engravings and etchings on them. These pieces needed only a quick polish to shine them up in order to look beautiful but the others needed something a little stronger to do the job. So my sister-in-law searched the internet for products that would take away the tarnish on those silver pieces that she wished to have it removed and she found a number of different websites offering these products when she searched Google.
Evidently a number of companies make these such products. Some of these products are Tarn-X, Silver Lightning, and Metallux. All of these products are said to work very well on silver and are fairly inexpensive as well but they all also contain harsh chemicals that for one may irritate your skin and second of all are dangerous to have in the house if there are children living there. And although my sister-in-law didn’t have a child at the time she was expecting which was also another reason to not use harsh chemical in and of itself, so she decided to look into alternative ways to get rid of the tarnish marring up certain pieces of her collection.
So, we went back to Google and we did another search but this time for homemade tarnish removers for silver jewelry. We found a number of helpful sites that detailed exactly how to make homemade silver jewelry cleaners that were safe and lacking harsh chemicals but yet still would work good enough to remove the tarnish. These homemade cleaners may contain things such as salt, soap, baking soda, and/or water. As you can see none of these materials are at all threatening or dangerous and they work well too.
For one particular homemade cleaner you will need salt, baking soda, water, aluminum foil, soap, and a glass pan big enough to hold these materials plus your jewelry or other silver pieces that you are cleaning. First you will want to cover the bottom of the glass pan with the aluminum foil in order to prevent the bottom of the pan from darkening. After you do this you will boil a solution made up of one quart of water, one tablespoon of baking soda, along with one teaspoon of salt. While you are in the process of boiling the solution you may place your silver in the pan on top of the aluminum foil. After the solution is boiled pour it over the silver and let it sit for five minutes before washing it with warm, soapy water and let dry.
This is a safe and easy way to clean silver jewelry and low cost as well.
Jarrie Wilson is the manager of inexpensive sterling silver jewelry site, 925wholesale.com. For information about sterling silver jewelry visit love for silver jewelry site.