I have this silver necklace that I love. A few months ago I lost it and was completely devastated. After going through and cleaning out my closet, I found it! When I saw it, I forgot how tarnished it became. Not wanting to go to the mall to have it cleaned, even though it would've been free, I didn't want to fall into the trap of having to stop at all of my favorite stores! I decided to find a DIY way to clean jewelry. I stopped over at my favorite search engine next to Google, Pinterest. It never lets me down. Not only did I find what I was searching for, I learned something too. I'm the type when I'm researching something I research it! I don't just stop at the first or second thing I come across. I look at at least ten sources if not more. I kept seeing a common denominator that intrigued me. Almost every post had you line the bowl with aluminum foil. My favorite subject ever is science, and I knew this had to be something relating to it. So, of course, I looked it up and turns out, this is chemistry in action!
Warning: this section is going to explain how and why this DIY works. Scroll down for the DIY to ignore me being nerdy!
When silver tarnishes, it combines with sulfur and forms silver sulfide. Silver sulfide is black. When a thin coating of silver sulfide forms on the surface of silver, it darkens the silver. When having your silver cleaned or polished professionally, not only are you removing the silver sulfide, but you’re also removing some of the silver as well.
When cleaning your silver this way it uses a chemical reaction to convert the silver sulfide back into silver. Many metals including silver form compounds with sulfur. Some of them have a greater affinity for sulfur than silver does. Aluminum is one of those metals. In this mixture, the silver sulfide reacts with the aluminum. In the reaction, sulfur atoms are transferred from silver to aluminum, freeing the silver metal and forming aluminum sulfide.
The reaction between silver sulfide and aluminum takes place when the two are in contact while they are immersed in a baking soda solution. The reaction is faster when the solution is warm. The solution carries the sulfur from the silver to the aluminum. The aluminum sulfide may adhere to the aluminum foil, or it may form tiny, pale yellow flakes in the bottom of the pan. The silver and aluminum must be in contact with each other because a small electric current flows between them during the reaction. This type of reaction, which involves an electric current, is called an electrochemical reaction. Reactions of this type are used in batteries to produce electricity.
what you need:
• bowl lined with aluminum foil
• boiling water
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp dish soap (not pictured here)
• soft rag (also, not pictured here)
step one:
Mix everything together in the bowl. Easy peasy, right?
step two:
Place your jewelry in the mixture. I added the dish soap in step one. I guess I just added to the photo as proof that I used it, lol. Let sit for 20 - 30 minutes.
step four:
Rinse and wipe clean with soft rag. That's all to it!
results:
I didn't get the best lighting here, but you can see the difference in the before and after photo. As you can see I decided to clean my ring as well. This should work for all silver and silver plated jewelry. Be careful and use with caution if attempting with any other metals. If you've tried it with anything other than silver, let me know below! Happy cleaning.