Cleaning silver – this one’s a beauty
Silver tarnishes on contact with air, but shop-bought silver cleaner is pricey, smelly - and such a pain to use. Sitting around, dabbing at silver with gunked-up dusters, really isn’t the best use of anyone’s time. Also, that stuff makes your fingers really sore.
I used to clean my silver jewellery and photo frames with meths. It does the same job as the cream cleaners, and you use it in the same way: rub it on and off with cloths.
Then I found an even better solution: aluminium foil! I found it here, and it works really well. You fill a bowl with hot water, add a generous pinch of salt and a slice of foil, then submerge your silver item. Ten minutes later, your silver will be as shiny as new.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof:
Here’s a silver bangle of mine. As you can tell, I haven’t worn it for a while – and it’s looking pretty grotty.
I put it in a bowl of hot salty water, on top of a small piece of aluminium foil.
Ten minutes later: voila!
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
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May 18th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Thankyou for this tip, Now, time to get out all my silver and try this one !!.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Thanks for this one – it even got a bracelet clean that I had thought beyond redemption! I went one thriftier and used a (clean) piece of foil I’d already used once for something else. I don’t think I’d use the same piece of foil for cleaning two sequential lots of silver cleaning though – or perhaps it would still be effective, judging by the comment on hintsandthings.co.uk?
September 11th, 2009 at 5:04 am
[...] Miss Thrifty from Miss Thrifty presents Cleaning Silver: This one’s a beauty. [...]
September 16th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
[...] Cleaning silver – this one’s a beauty was featured in the 23rd Carnival of Pecuniary Delights, over at Almost Frugal. This is an old favourite, which shows how to clean jewellery and household items using tin foil, salt and warm water – and none of those stinky, gunky cleaners. [...]