Most people don’t know this, but you can clean off tarnish and re-plate jewelry to try to make it look brand new again.
What you’ll need:
–an aluminum plate or aluminum foil
–salt
–baking soda
–water
–access to a microwave
–a clean rag
–your discolored jewelry
- First, you’ll want to collect all of your jewelry that needs to be fixed or cleaned. Take note if the jewelry contains any gemstones. If it does, you’ll want to be careful about getting that area too wet. Water can dissolve the glue under gemstones, causing them to fall off later on.
- You’ll need a deep aluminum plate or bowl, like a pie plate. If you don’t have access to one, you can use a regular plate or bowl wrapped in aluminum foil. If you go with the latter, make sure the aluminum foil doesn’t tear.
- Pour 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of baking soda on the plate.
- Heat 1 cup of water in a microwave for less than 2 minutes. You want it to be hot but not boiling. Then, pour the hot water on to the salt and baking soda mixture. 5) Stir the jewelry cleaning mixture completely so the ingredients combine and there are no clumps. Wait about 1 minute for the mixture to completely liquefy after stirring it. 6) Place your jewelry in the mixture. In this step, the salt, baking soda, and water mixture should oxidize the tarnish off the jewelry. The silver from the foil or aluminum plate should re-plate the worn spots on your jewelry.
- When the tarnish is nearly all gone, remove the jewelry from the mixture. This may take a few seconds to up to two minutes. Just be patient. You should start to see your jewelry becoming shinier and regaining its hue.
- Using a clean, dry, soft rag, remove the remaining tarnish from your jewelry by wiping it gently. Sometimes verdigris builds up on jewelry. This is the green gunk that often collects on jewelry. Wiping it with a clean rag should remove it, after the salt and baking soda soak it just had.
- If the above did not work, you can also trying cleaning with Tarn-X.