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Cleaning sterling silver
By: Crystal Flair
Many of us enjoy working with sterling silver and it is also the most popular of the precious metals for end jewellery wearers. Alas though you have probably had times when you have gone to pop on a jewellery piece to discover it has discoloured.
The reason for this is that sterling silver will tarnish when in contact with airborne sulphur and sulphide pollutants, first it will go a golden hue and then black, if you live in humid conditions then your jewellery will tarnish quicker.
Don’t let this spoil your enjoyment of sterling silver though as there are easy ways to clean it.
You can use a professional impregnated silver cleaning cloth, be sure to keep your cloth in a sealed plastic bag between use.
You could try some white thick toothpaste and use a small drop under water to work up a lather and then rinse though this method will provide minimal cleaning, make sure to rinse well.
Our favourite method though is like a little home chemistry lesson. Take an aluminium pie dish or line a plastic or glass bowl with alfoil. Add some boiling water, so it will cover your piece and pop in a teaspoon each of salt and baking soda (you can skip the salt if you wish). While fizzing add your jewellery, we found it much faster to make sure your sterling silver touches the foil and will use a wooden skewer to gently push beads to the base if they don’t sit on it by themselves.
Rinse your piece well in fresh water and dry and buff, now when it is completely dry try storing in a sealed plastic bag or container to help retard further tarnishing.
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