A good start for my first week money-saving challenge: Cleaning Silver with Household Products
Silver is one of my favourite precious metals. I found it more elegant and fashionable than any other jewelries. Unfortunately it is more fragile than its fellow metals. Neglected silver jewelries can get tarnished and may even stain your clothes.
 |
| Tarnished silver jewellery before cleaning |
There are many ways to get them shiny again. You can take them to a jewelry expert or look up for silverware cleaning and polishing creams in homeware stores and jewelry shops. Choosing the frugal way of cleaning silver jewelry will leave the money in your pocket.
Why should you pay for it when you can achieve the goal with a simple, cheap and eco-friendly method?
Here it goes!
Accessories:
- A glass bowl or a dish
- Aluminum foil
- Boiled water
- 2-3 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon salt (sea salt or iodized salt)
Cleaning process
Cover the inner surface of the glass dish with the aluminum foil. Place the silver items into the dish then sprinkle the baking soda and the salt on them. Pour the boiled water on the sprinkled silver items. The items should be fully submerged in the solution. If you can smell the penetrating odour of the sulphur, then you will know that you are on the right way.
Depending on how badly the silver is tarnished the cleaning process should take between 20-50 minutes. My jewelleries were badly tarnished, so I left them for 50 minutes.
After the silver becomes brighter place them on a clean fabric. Don’t wait until they dry start scrubbing them with the clean, soft fabric or you may use a soft toothbrush as well.
This cleaning process can also be used for larger silver items like tableware, candle holders, jewellery, etc.
Voilá!
 |
| Silver jewellery after cleaning |
Good to know!
For my experiment I used 925 sterling silver
If you have larger silver items I recommend you to use a larger bowl, because the reaction will only be successful if the silver gets in contact with the aluminum foil.
Don’t wear them while you are washing the dishes, having a bath, or getting in contact with mineral water.
Silver jewelries with stones should be handled with care. Use a waterproof plaster in order to protect the stones, then you may place them in the solution.
Never put your silver tablewares into the dishwasher.
If the water is warm the cleaning process will be faster.
Storing Silver
Store the silver in a well sealed box free of excess moisture and chemicals. Place moisture-absorbent near the silver wares, for instance silica gel packets. You can purchase it in most of the pharmacies.
Cleaning silver with baking soda instead of using industrial compounds is not just cheaper but eco-friendly as well.
Plus, I’m sure all of you have the necessary accessories in your homes.
How about you? How do you clean your silverware?
Let me know :)
