How to Cleaned a Heavily Tarnished Piece of Jewelry (non-toxic)

Berta Lily
by Berta Lily
5 Materials
30 Minutes
Easy

I had a heavily tarnished ring I found and it was BLACK!!

This ring was my grandmothers from Russia! So it was worth giving it a good clean.

I don't trust the silver cleaners you can get since they are highly chemical based and can remove some of the silver itself. In the past when I used these cleaners, the item would look great initially but then look 10 times worse after a short period of time.

All you really need is some aluminum foil, hot water and baking soda.

Place the foil and jewelry in a glass and cover with baking soda. Make sure the item is touching the foil.

Then pour hot water. WARNING: some have said that the hot water can affect the glue holding stones in place, use at your own discretion!

I used a toothbrush and added new hot water over the course of about 30 minutes.

You can already see a huge difference!

Then I used a polishing cloth some elbow grease. This one was new when I started and completely black after just the one ring.

I would say I breathed new life into this old ring.

To prevent from future tarnishing , keep your silver in a dark cool area (especially in humid regions) and limit exposure to water by removing jewelry when washing your hands.

Suggested materials:
  • Tarnished silver jewelry
  • Aluminum foil
  • Baking soda
See all materials

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