How to clean silver at home from black to glisten quickly and effectively

Holders of stylish silver-white decorations know how to clean silver at home so that it again shines,as with the purchase. Of course, you can do it quickly and effortlessly in a jewelry shop. However, professional cleaning costs money, and the products from this metal darken quite often.

If we talk about silverware, it is unlikely that someone will turn to the jeweler every time before serving a festive table. Therefore, anyone who has silver at home - be it jewelry or tableware - will be useful to learn how to whiten silver at home.

Why the silver is getting dark

In the East it is believed that if the silver jewelry turned black, then the owner wanted to bring damage. That is, the bracelet, earring or ring took on a negative energy, thereby protecting the person. Many believe that a product that has darkened during the wearing is the result of nervous overloads, stresses and illnesses. At the same time, science has shown that blacks are caused by silver sulphides, which are formed on the surface of products when they come into contact with sulfur. Reasonable question: how can silver jewelry "meet" with sulfur?

Sulfur is contained in human sweat. By the way, increased sweating is characteristic of stressful conditions and certain diseases. Also, sulfur contains many cosmetics. Mostly these are creams, ointments and other cosmetics intended for caring for problem skin.

Another problem faced by the owners of silver products is dullness and loss of the original radiance. Ornaments cease to shine due to contamination, dust and greasy plaque, which is formed after daily contact with the skin. Also, jewelry is dusted when stored incorrectly. It is best to place rings, earrings or bracelets in a box, spread out in polyethylene bags or wrapped in foil.

Advice: in order to be less likely to think about how to clean silver from blackness and dust, it is necessary to take precautionary measures - to remove silver jewelry before active training, before visiting baths and saunas, before applying cosmetic products and storing them correctly.

How to return silver shine

To refresh the appearance of the decoration or lighten it, you should proceed from the reasons that caused its darkening, as well as assess the degree of pollution. From this will depend on the method of cleaning, the solution, and, as a consequence, the ingredients.

The most famous, tried and tested tools for effectively cleaning the house silver, you can name:

• laundry soap;
• dishwashing detergent;
• liquid ammonia;
• tooth powder;
• baking soda;
• citric acid;
• hydrogen peroxide;
• table vinegar.

In addition, there will be useful:

• cotton wheels;
• aluminum foil;
• soft toothbrush with cut bristles;
• soft cloth;
• piece of suede.

With household soap or detergent for dishes( they can also be replaced with a detergent or shampoo), you can wash off the fatty film, which eventually begins to cover the constantly worn on the body of silver jewelry, such as a cross, favorite earrings or a ring. Ammonia, or rather a solution of ammonia( ammonia), table vinegar and hydrogen peroxide can be bleached silver.

Baking soda and tooth powder act as a light abrasive, which allows to effectively remove impurities. A boiling of products with citric acid( or baking soda) and foil allows you to clean decorations or table silver chemically in large quantities. Therefore, this option is often used when removing dark plaque from silver cutlery from sets of 6, 12 persons - it allows you to quickly clean a lot of objects, and not manually polish each fork or spoon.

We clean jewelry with stones and without

Before cleaning the silver chain at home or other decorations, it is worth to assess the degree of their contamination: whether they are only faded or dark. Remove fatty film, a layer of dust and clean off small blockages in the recesses by preparing a soap solution and treating the product with a toothbrush. If you need a method how to clean silver from blackness, after soap treatment it is necessary to conduct a clarifying procedure. Detailed instructions with the norms and time will be discussed below.

It is also important to know how to peel silver earrings or a ring with stones. Depending on what kind of stones the product is decorated with, a cleaning solution is chosen. The softer the stone, the more carefully it should be cleaned. Find out how hard and scratch resistant it is, you can, by finding the appropriate name in the table, compiled according to the mineralogical scale of Mohs.

If the stone index is less than 5, then it can be cleaned only with a soap solution and in no case should you use abrasives( tooth powder, baking soda).For example, the malachite index is 3.5-4, corals and pearls - 3-4, amber - 2-3.When cleaning ornaments inlaid with these stones, you should be very careful not to scratch them.

However, it is not enough to know the index on the Mohs scale. Many precious and semiprecious colored stones can change, and sometimes lose their color under certain conditions. For example, topaz. Its hardness is 8. However, when cleaning it, it is impossible to use products containing chlorine, soak in hot water and even more so boil.

For cleaning, a soap solution of room temperature( 21-25 ° C) is prepared or a method is used to clean silver with ammonia. This method also applies to decorations with cubic zircon and cubic zirconia - one of the most common "neighbors" of silver.

Tip: thinking about how to clean a silver ring or earrings with stones, pay attention to their mount. If they are only glued, but not fixed, do not soak the product. It should be limited wiping wadded disk, moistened in the prepared solution, brushing with a toothbrush or polishing abrasive-containing gruel, without affecting the "finicky" stones.

I want to pay special attention to how to clean a cross. The cross can be decorated with stones, so when cleaning it, you should follow the rules for products with inserts. Also before cleaning it is important to make sure that the cross is made of silver.

A common material that looks like silver, from which a cross can be made, is tin. However, a tin cross can not be cleaned just like a silver one. Therefore it is important to check the presence of a sample, which will indicate that the cross is made of silver.

Methods for step-by-step cleaning of jewelry

Before you clean silver - whether it's a chain, ring or cross, look at your jewelry in the light of the information given above, and start cleaning, choosing something that fits one or another type of product.

• Prepare a cleaning solution or soap slurry.

For products without inserts or decorations with stones that carry the effects of ammonia, a cleaning solution is suitable. Otherwise it is better to use a soap slurry. Also soaking in the gruel is a great way to clean the silver chain at home. Soap penetrates into each link and causes dirt to soak.

Cleaning solution: 1 tsp.means for washing dishes( or 1 tbsp detergent powder, or 1 tsp shampoo) + 1 cup boiling water + 1 tsp.ammonia.

Soap pulp: grate laundry soap on a large grater or set with a knife. Add some hot water. After the soap chips swell, you can soak the ornaments in it.

Silver products can be kept in a washing solution or soap dish from 15 minutes to 10 hours. Time depends on the intensity of the contamination.

• After the dirt has become soaked, it is possible to brush off the remains with a toothbrush. In doing so, it is necessary to walk through all the notches, engraving, locks, links that the chain has, and other hard-to-reach elements.

• Rinse the decorations under a stream of clean water and dry them.

• Polish the silverware with soda or tooth powder. To do this, take a cotton pad, lightly moisten it with water and blot into dental powder or soda. Rub silver with a disc, brushing off the black. Rinse under running water.

• Dry the decoration and polish with a suede cloth.

The above method takes time. If you need to quickly refresh the appearance of silver jewelry, suitable for cleaning silver, like vinegar. It is enough to warm it slightly( up to 34-36 ° C) and put it in a bowl of vinegar for 5-10 minutes. Then, decorations should be washed, dried and polished.

Tip: Before you clean the silver earrings, pay attention to the next moment - if the unpleasant odor emanates from the earrings, and their surface is covered by a gray-green coating, treat them with hydrogen peroxide, directly dropping it onto the contamination. It is also useful to wipe with a cotton swab moistened with hydrogen peroxide, ear lobes to prevent repeated contamination of the earrings.

Clean table silver

An effective and entertaining way of cleaning silver - with foil and baking soda - allows you to clean many products at once, so they are often used in lightening table silver. Silver and aluminum form a galvanic pair. As a result of the reaction, which takes place at an elevated temperature, the sulfur ions leave the silver and pass to the aluminum foil.

Baking soda in this case is needed in order to "release" aluminum from under the oxide film, which the foil is coated in production.

• Place the cookware on the included cooker, cover the bottom with food foil. Prepare the solution: for every 450 ml of water, take 3 tsp.baking soda( or citric acid).When the water starts to boil, put silver on the bottom of the dish.

• Products are cleaned right before your eyes! Black is replaced by a silver glow.

• Once the cutlery has lightened, gently remove them from boiling water and rinse in clean water. Then wipe dry.

• This way you can clean many forks and spoons at once. You just need to pick up the right dishes and pour so much water so that it completely covers the cutlery. Pouring water, consider ml - in proportion to them, you should increase the amount of soda( citric acid).

It is not difficult to clean silver at home. You just need to remember the basic principles: to pay attention to the stones and observe the rules for the preparation of solutions. And the necessary ingredients are found in every home.