The best way to clean silver jewellery

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Learning how to clean silver jewellery can make all the difference to your favourite pieces.

Silver appears flawless at first; bright, beautiful and sparkling. But, exposure to moisture, chemicals and sulphur with everyday use can soon tarnish and discolour it. Before too long, it’s lost its shiny appeal and instead has dulled to a dark grey or black, even sometimes transferring stains onto your clothes.

Luckily there are ways to clean your silver jewellery, some of which just require a couple of household products. If you want to get your silver jewellery looking like new, just follow these steps.

How do you clean tarnished silver jewellery?

There are numerous ways to clean silver jewellery. You can tackle the tarnish with eco-friendly household staples like bicarbonate of soda, and even cola can remove that dreaded dulled appearance.

If you’d prefer to keep a ready-made silver cleaner to hand, they come in many forms. You can choose between easy-to-use baths and dips or polishes. A silver polishing cloth comes with a cleaner embedded in the cloth so keeping one of these in your jewellery box is great for last-minute buffing.

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What’s the best way to clean silver rings, earrings and bracelets?

Delicate pieces of jewellery require a bit of care, particularly if they contain stones or pearls. We suggest using a cream cleaner, silver polishing cloth or the simple DIY method below.

Mix a paste of roughly 3 parts bicarbonate of soda to one part water and apply to your silver jewellery, taking care to avoid stones or pearls.
Rub the paste into the silver with a lint free or microfibre cloth until you see the shine starting to return. A soft toothbrush is a useful tool to get into intricate areas that are tricky to reach.
Rinse off the paste and buff with a soft dry lint free cloth to remove any remaining tarnish and bring out the shine.

GHI Tip: Avoid getting silver cleaner on inset stones and pearls as they’re easily damaged by cleaning products, including the more eco-friendly DIY versions. Take extra care when cleaning this type of silver jewellery.

What’s the best way to clean silver chains?

There’s no point trying to polish the tarnish from your silver chain link by link as you’ll be there all day! This is where dips and baths come in handy. You can buy a proprietary mix like QuickShine Jewellery Bath - just be sure to follow the instructions on the packaging. Alternatively, follow the steps below for an eco-friendly DIY silver bath.

Line a bowl with aluminium foil - shiny side up.
Fill with enough boiling water to submerge your chain.
Add 1 tbsp of bicarbonate of soda per 500ml water. Carefully combine by gently stirring.
Add your chain and leave to soak for up to 30 minutes.
Carefully remove the chain with a spoon and leave to cool (if necessary). Then rinse away any residues and buff with a soft lint free cloth to remove any remaining tarnish.

Note: Heavily tarnished items may require a second bath.

Do not use this method on silver jewellery which contains embellishments held in place by adhesives. The hot water can melt the adhesive and lead to damage.

You can also try submerging chains in a bath of cola; the acid should remove the tarnish. But only leave the chain in the cola for a short time and remove as soon as the tarnish has disappeared. Rinse off the cola straight away and buff with a soft lint free cloth

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How do you clean sterling silver?

When it comes to cleaning, whether you have solid silver, silver plated jewellery or sterling silver, there’s no difference in how you should tackle the tarnish.

How should you store silver jewellery?

It’s impossible to fully prevent silver from tarnishing but storing it correctly can help. Silver doesn’t tarnish in dry air, but the higher the humidity, the faster it’ll tarnish. So the key is to limit the exposure to both air and moisture. You can do this by wrapping your jewellery in a cloth or storing it in a felt pouch or even a zip lock bag.

Some people recommend keeping the silica sachets that come in packages and popping them in your jewellery box. The silica keeps moisture at bay, so may help to slow down the tarnishing process.

How to prevent silver jewellery from tarnishing

Following on from this, here are a few tips to help prevent tarnishing in the future.

Do not wear your jewellery in the shower, or even leave it sitting on the side in the bathroom; the moisture here will take its toll.
Do not wear your silver jewellery while you sleep, or while working out. Sweat will contribute to tarnishing.
Take care not to spray your perfume directly onto your silver jewellery during application.
Avoid accidentally applying makeup or sunscreen to your silver jewellery; wait until these dry before wearing your jewellery to lessen the impact and tarnishing.
Dry your jewellery immediately if it becomes wet using a lint-free microfibre cloth.