How To Clean Silver- Follow This Guide To Get Dazzling Silver As If It’s Entirely New

When you love silver for its minimalistic beauty, you tend to find ways on how to clean silver using various brilliant methods. This piece of article will allow you to learn a lot on how to clean silver and how to tarnish it easily using pretty simple ingredients we generally have in our house.

Restore the dazzling shine silver has to offer using household ingredients. Silver is used mostly in creating alluring and heirloom quality pieces like cutlery, vases, serving platters, and candlesticks.

The prettiest accessories we receive out of this particular metal lend a luxurious touch to our attires and add a royal vibe when placed on table settings for their brilliant display.

However, over time their exposure to air and light can eventually lead to a dull appearance instead of their natural shiny ones. Light and air exposure can also tarnish their appearance and they won’t appear as luxurious and pretty as they were. Since we use silver items for display rather than using them constantly, we need to know some great ideas that can help you with how to clean silver easily.

The dullness or tarnished appearance (turning black) is due to a chemical reaction between sulfur and silver when they are exposed to air. You should know that most accessories of silver we get nowadays are plated using a thin layer of rhodium that protects it from rusting or tarnishing and helps to keep it shinier and brighter as usual.

We are fortunate enough that cleaning silver is not a very difficult and tedious process. Using few basic ingredients from pantries such as baking soda and salt, we can easily remove the dullness and clean the tarnished silver.

Let’s see different ways using which we can learn how to clean silver and how to polish silver to prevent it from tarnishing again. Get ready for sparkling silver yet again!

How To Clean Silver

Here are some inexpensive ways that you can use easily and learn how to clean silver.

1. Using Aluminium Foil And Laundry Detergent

If your silver jewelry or items in your house are tarnished very slightly you can use this trick. For slightly blackened silver, it works appropriately. All you have to do to clean silver using foil and detergent is given here. Use a bowl and line it using aluminum foil. Once you have lined it, fill it using hot water.

You have to add any laundry detergent, generally 1 tablespoon, and then stir it well. Get all the tarnished silver ingredients and drop them inside your mixture. Let it soak for a minute or two. Now take them out and rinse them again using slightly warm water and place them on a pepper towel to let them dry out thoroughly. Your silver jewelry or other items will be cleaned entirely.

2. How To Clean Silver Using Baking Soda And Aluminium Foil

Probably one of the best ways you need to learn on how to clean silver. Aluminum and soda bath works excellent when you have slightly bigger items of silver to clean that cannot be placed inside a small bowl.

This method can be used effectively to clean candlesticks, silver cutlery, or silver tableware. Take any baking pan from the kitchen and cover its bottom using aluminum foil. While covering it, remember that you have to keep the shinier side of aluminum foil on the upper side. Also, the glassware should be made up of glass or ceramic, never use a metal pan as it might cause certain unwanted chemical reactions that we are afraid of.

Fill this pan using water and baking soda. The baking soda should be 1.5 tablespoons only while using a gallon of water. Bring the mixture you have created to boil. Once it has boiled nicely, place the silver items that need to clean inside of it for nearly 15 to 20 seconds. Now use kitchen tongs to take out all the ingredients of silver one by one.

Leave it on a paper towel for it to cool down completely and get rid of excess water and soda mixture. You will be pleased to know that all the tarnish will vanish. If your silver items had built up tarnish for a long period of time, you might have to repeat the procedure again to make sure your silver items are as clean as new.

Note that this recipe is not ideal while cleaning encrusted gemstones and silver jewelry.

3. How To Clean Silver Using Water And Cornflour

This seems a bit new and confusing, but you can easily know how to clean silver using cornflour with this useful guide.

If the silver ingredients you have or jewelry you wear has lost its shine, you can use this method or recipe to restore its shine.

You just have to prepare a thick paste using water and cornflour. Take cornflour in more quantity and keep adding water drop by drop for the paste to become thick. Apply this paste all over the silver ingredients or jewelry that has lost its shine and became blackish n texture and color.

Wait for the mixture or paste to dry out completely over the silver ingredient and then rub it off using a towel so that the surface of silver gets polished and the shine will be restored. If you do not have cornflour right now, you can use another substitute that is cream of tartar to carry out the same procedure.

4. How To Clean Silver Using Ketchup

This might sound weird to some extent but ketchup works completely fine and works great for removing tarnish from silver. If you only have 1 or 2 items of silver that need to be cleaned, you can easily use this method. Let’s see how it goes.

You have to squeeze out few drops of any ketchup you have been using onto a paper towel. Using this paper towel, clean the surface of silver that has been tarnished. If the tarnish is new, you can use it this way. If the tarnish is quite old, you can directly pour the ketchup onto the silver ingredients and then rub it off using a paper towel given that it remains on silver ingredients for 15 minutes.

You can also use a microfiber cloth for rubbing it nicely and rinse using water afterward. Some items of silver like silverware and candlesticks have intricate details that we cannot reach using a paper towel or cloth. For such details, you can use any old toothbrush and clean between the services to get a shinier appearance.

5. How To Clean Silver Using Hand Sanitizer

If you have a tarnished silver ring that needs immediate attention to be cleaned in a go, you can easily use a hand sanitizer. Let’s see what you have got to do for this method to come out efficiently.

Squeeze a little amount of hand sanitizer on your handkerchief and rub it gently over your silver ring or jewelry. In this way, the tarnish will quickly vanish leaving behind a piece of shiny and clean silver jewelry.

Note that if you have encrusted stones on your jewelry, do not use this method. Hand sanitizers have alcohol-based ingredients that might cause damage to the stones affecting their quality.

6. How To Clean Silver Using Toothpaste

Here comes the classic DIY method that can help you with cleaning silver. Toothpaste is an amazing ingredient for cleaning teeth and many other things, we also use it often when we have a burn-in in any parts of our body. It can be used effectively in cleaning silver too. Let’s see how this one works.

You have to use a non-gel and non-abrasive type of toothpaste to carry out this procedure. Check for the ingredients and type of toothpaste as mentioned on the label. Just squeeze a small amount of toothpaste on a clean handkerchief and then rub it onto the silverware or silver jewelry using a circular motion to clean the tarnish present on it.

Leave it as it is for 5 minutes and then as it dries out, rinse it using water so that toothpaste is off the silver. You will witness a clean and shiny silver piece after you carry out this procedure.

7. How To Clean Silver Using Lemon Soda

If you have a silver piece or jewelry that got tarnished and mat, you can just soak it inside a bowl filled with water and lemon-lime soda. Keep it for few minutes and then take it out to rinse it thoroughly using clean and normal water. Dry it using a paper towel or any soft and clean cloth.

This method is amazing if you have a slightly tarnished or mat silver. For highly tarnished silverware, you can use any of the above methods.

8. How To Clean Silver With A Window Cleaning Detergent

Window cleaners are amazing, not only for cleaning glassware and windows but also for removing dirt from silver. It will help in restoring the shine of silver and sterling the silver pretty nicely. You have to spray a little bit of detergent on any cloth and then start scrubbing this cloth on silverware or jewelry you wish to clean.

If your silverware has small and intricate designs on it, then you can also use a brush to scrub it by spraying the window detergent directly on the silverware. Do not use this method to clean antique silver ornaments or silverware like cutlery, jewelry, or candlesticks. Antique materials are quite fragile and need more care than other pieces of jewelry or silverware you have.

If you want to clean any antique silver materials present inside your house, you are advised to invest in some specialized products that can help clean your silverware.

9. How To Clean Silver Using Ammonia And Water

This is another easy way that you can use if you wish to brighten your silver jewelry or any accessories. Let’s see what you have to do to carry out this procedure nicely.

Prepare a solution having 1 part of clear ammonia and 2 parts of warm water. Soak the silver items you are having in this liquid solution prepared for nearly 10 minutes.

After waiting for 10 minutes or so, wipe the silverware using a paper towel or soft material. You can later on buff the items using a cotton cloth and polish the surface nicely. Again, if you have an antique material made out f silver, do not use Ammonia on it because they are fragile and ammonia is a powerful agent.

10. How To Clean Silver Using Baking Soda And Distilled Vinegar

Even this method or recipe for cleaning silver is not appropriate if you have antique silvers to clean on. It is an amazing way to restore the shine and luster of your silver cutlery and silver jewelry. Let’s see how to carry out this procedure.

You have to take a bowl of appropriate size according to the size and number of silver pieces you need to clean. Put the item to be cleaned inside this bowl and cover them using white distilled vinegar. Just add baking soda to the bowl. The proportions are 4 tbsp of baking soda for every cup of vinegar. Leave the silverware inside this mixture for an hour and then rinse them using clean water. Later on, you can tap dry using a cotton cloth.

How To Clean Silver Items That Are Antique

All the above-mentioned methods were mostly valid for cleaning silver that is not antique. If you have antique silver jewelry like necklaces, rings, etc, cleaning them can be quite tricky as they have stones embedded in them many times.

Vigorous cleaning can be harmful and it may damage the pieces by causing flaking. If you have antique items or silver jewelry you own that have embellishments or gemstones, just use baby shampoo or mild soap for cleaning it. You can use cotton swabs or any soft bristle brush for cleaning it. While using a brush make sure you are handling it with light hands to avoid scratching the surfaces.

If you have very costly antique pieces that need to be cleaned, contact an antique dealer. You may also talk to a jeweler or professional restoration company to help you out with the process.

These were some great ways that you can easily use to get ideas on how to clean silver nicely and get that shiny appearance as if you have just brought it from a jeweler or showroom.