Yes, it’s pretty easy to clean your tarnished jewelry.
No, the dullness was not the look of your jewelry over time. It should be as new as you bought it.
But that doesn’t mean you have to be an expert at polishing jewels. You only need to take 10 mins to have your brand new jewels back.
How? Here are the tips.
First, get your kitchen stuff ready, including aluminum foil, baking soda, salt, clean cloth, and hot water.
Cover the bowl with aluminum foil and Fill it up
Use aluminum foil to cover the bowl. Why this? long answer is because of the chemical reaction called ion exchange we needed later to remove the waste on the jewelry. Short answer is that it works! You then fill up a bowl with hot water, but not boiling, as it might destroy your jewelry.
Add salt and soda
Put 1 spoon of salt, and add another spoon of baking soda into the hot water. Slightly and gently stir it up.
Soak and rub
All you need to do then is soak your jewelry for 10mins. Be careful not to forget to pick it up, especially when you have any gemstones on your jewelry. Because long time soaking might loosen your stone as it’s cleaning it. Once done, you can use a soft cloth to rub carefully the jewelry.
Rinse and Dry
Last, rinse it in warm water and dry it again with a soft cloth. Done! you have your shining jewelry back!
After learning how to polish your jewelry, you also want to know some dos and don’ts before you get started.
- Do soak the jewelry before and rub it
Soaking the jewelry in the hot water can help remove the dirt and debris as the salt and baking soda have the function of cleansing. And enough time of soaking ensures you don’t need to use a brush later but a soft cloth to rub.
- Don’t clean your jewelry with harsh cleaning products.
You don’t need to take special detergent or bleach. As the unknown components might destroy your necklace or beautiful ring. Then what if you wanna have some try? The wise choice? Always test it first in some inconspicuous place. But the safest way is our tips above, easier and no-harm at all.
- Don’t take shower with your jewelry
If you are wearing sterling silver, do not take it showering. As for gold jewelry? Not suggested. What’s the catch? Well, even though gold jewelry, no matter it’s solid gold or white or yellow gold in the shower will not be damaged, the shine would be reduced. Gold plated jewelry? it would cause the gold layer to wear off. What are the difference between them? check here: the difference between gold plated jewelry, gold filled jewelry. So you’d better take off your jewelry before showing.
Every 2 or 3 months. Cleaning your jewelry after it gets dark or tarnished would keep them shiny. However, you don’t want to continually repolish them. Why? because repolishing too often, like only one or two weeks will remove the metal away. To make them look sparkly you don’t necessarily need to polish them every week, but a few months will do.
Now you’ve got the scoop on how to clean your jewelry, and if you want to know more information about how to maintain your jewelry, don’t forget check our jewelry education channel at YFN.