Cleaning jewelry
How to clean costume jewelry
Most jewelry metals can be cleaned to be very shiny like new again and it’s usually quite easily done. This page is here to give you the information you need to restore your jewelry back to new again.
Dirty jewelry
An old trick that has been used throughout the ages to quickly get the dirt off of jewelry and restore some shine is to use a cleaning cloth smothered in ammonia solution. Now you should generally press quite hard when you’re wiping for best results. Some people switch to using a small brush which also reportedly works well.
How to clean silver jewelry
Long before real mix solutions were made for cleaning silver jewelry, there existed a simple formula that does the job very well. You can make this mixture very easily in your home with materials that you already have right now as it’s very simple.
All you have to do is mix salt and water together in an aluminum pan. It’s important that you use aluminum or this trick won’t work. Carefully place your silver jewelry into the pan and an electrolytic reaction will occur which causes the tarnish to disappear.
Note: The tarnish actually doesn’t really disappear, instead it moves itself over to the aluminum pan so be sure to find an older pan to use and use it only for cleaning jewelry. Store it somewhere so you can reuse it over and over.
Another homebrew method
Vinegar is also reportedly useful for cleaning cheap costume jewelry which is made from the cheaper metals that oxidize much more quickly. For best results, press firmly with your cloth while cleaning.
