Another interesting way to clean silver at home on video

All owners of silver jewelry have noticed over time that a dark coating appears on their jewelry. Removing it is not difficult if you know a few simple ways. We’ll talk about how to clean silver at home in our article and experiment a little.

Why does silver darken - we understand the reasons for the darkening

Silver tends to darken because it contains copper molecules. This metal is afraid of the effects of hydrogen sulfide, and upon interaction becomes dark.

Here are the main reasons for the darkening of silver:

composition of ambient air;
sample of a silver product;
relative humidity;
composition of human sweat;
composition of used cosmetics.

There is an opinion that silver on a person’s body darkens due to the state of his health. If you have kidney or liver disease, silver items begin to darken.

Basic ways to clean silver at home

In order to determine the best way to clean silver at home, we will conduct an experiment and test the most well-known methods for cleaning this noble metal. I took several silver jewelry that was noticeably blackened.

1. Clean silver with soapy water

Sometimes the dark coating is just ordinary dust or dirt.

Therefore, first of all, let’s wash the silver with hot water and liquid or regular soap. Instead of soap, you can use dishwashing detergent. Soak the silver in soapy water and then scrub it with a toothbrush.

This method removed all the dirt well, but does not add shine to the decoration. A. If the jewelry has been sitting for a long time and has become very dark, as in my case, then this method will be ineffective. I was convinced from personal experience.

2. Grated potatoes help

Another good way is to grate potatoes. Here are the earrings before cleaning.

After chopping the potatoes, you need to fill them with water and lower the silver jewelry into it. After a few minutes, you need to polish the silver with a dry cloth. It is best to use wool fabric.

The silver product really becomes cleaner, dark stains disappear. I liked this method.

3. Lemon solution for silver products without stones

A lemon solution will help restore the former shine to your silver. Let's experiment on a chain.

It is enough to hold the silver in one of these solutions and then wipe it with a dry cloth. It is important to know that this method is only suitable for silver items without stones.

To be honest, I had to keep it in this solution a little longer than in others. For some reason my chain with a pendant turned yellowish, but the cleaning effect was a little disappointing. 15 minutes was not enough, I had to leave it in the solution longer.

A little about cleaning silver items with stones

Cleaning silver jewelry that contains inlaid stones is a little more difficult. The easiest way is to use the services of professionals. In addition to all this, you can find special liquids on sale for cleaning silver jewelry yourself.

But if you haven’t found such liquids and don’t want to pay for the work of a professional, then there are traditional methods . For example, you can again prepare a soap solution. Add a drop of alcohol to the laundry soap solution and bring to a boil. After complete cooling, you need to carefully handle the decoration. Remove black spots around the stone with a cotton swab. But soap solution is not suitable for heavy stains.

4. Clean silver items with ammonia

For our experiment, let's take a ring.

It is necessary to put silver items in 10% ammonia and leave for some time. Monitor the cleaning process; within 10-15 minutes the product should become clean. For a better effect, add a little vegetable oil to the solution, then wash the product in a soapy solution.

This cleaning agent has a specific smell, so you need to use ammonia with caution. I didn’t like this method precisely because of the persistent smell throughout the kitchen, although the product cleans silver items perfectly.

5. Hydrogen peroxide against silver contamination

To compare with the previous method, we take the ring again.

To clean silver with hydrogen peroxide , you need to soak the product in a 3 percent solution for 10-20 minutes. This not only cleans the jewelry, but also makes it shine.

This method turned out to be the best of the above. Firstly, peroxide has no smell, and secondly, it cleans products well. There were even pieces of dirt floating in the solution that had come off the ring.

6. Toothpaste for cleaning silver

Let's take a silver ring as an example.

Toothpaste perfectly cleans silver items. Just press a little paste onto the brush and clean the surface with circular movements.

Jewelry becomes clean even in hard-to-reach places. But there is one drawback: if silver items are polished, then this cleaning method will not work, since the brush will quickly scratch the surface. My products were simple, so the cleaning was a success.

So, after the experiment, we will draw a small conclusion.

Soap solution is good for slightly dirty products. Citric acid was not as effective as we would like. The potatoes cleaned my earrings well, and then my chain, I was pleasantly surprised. Ammonia cleaned well, but the whole kitchen was permeated with the smell of ammonia, so I’ll probably give it up. Hydrogen peroxide was a pleasant surprise. But cleaning with toothpaste and a brush completely satisfied me - everything that was not cleaned with the previous methods was easily cleaned with simple toothpaste.