How to clean silver and gold jewelry? | Blackened or oxidized jewelry

Products such as toothpaste can cause an abrasive and corrosive effect on these materials , causing great wear and polishing of our jewelry, leaving a dull result that is not desired when we want to clean the jewelry and leave it shiny like new.

We have seen several people use these products and have not had any problems, but we prefer not to use them as there are other less intrusive and more efficient products.

How to clean silver, gold and steel jewelry

But after several tests, these are the 3 most efficient methods to clean your jewelry. First of all, we recommend that you prepare your space.

What do we need for jewelry cleaning?

1. Find a container among all your jewelry

2. Hard bristle brush or toothbrush

3. Unused cloth or piece of fabric

4. Heat water to about 70ºC (before boiling)

5. Aluminum foil depending on the method you choose

Next, depending on the method we choose :

What can we do to prevent jewelry from turning black?

Before knowing the methods to clean jewelry, it is very important to understand how to avoid this from happening in order to prevent our jewelry from turning black.

Be careful with cosmetic products:

 Makeup, perfume and creams can cause this effect, so we recommend putting on your jewelry once the products have been absorbed.

Do not exercise while wearing jewelry:

Sweat is very harmful to some materials such as silver, so we recommend that you remove all jewelry before training.

Don't sleep with your jewelry on you can:

If you see that the pH of your skin does not dye the jewelry, you can leave this advice aside, but otherwise we advise you to take off your jewelry before sleeping.

Using a jewelry box to care for and protect your jewelry:

This helps prevent humidity and sudden temperature changes, and ensures that your jewelry is always in perfect condition when you use it.

How to clean blackened or rusty jewelry

Now, let's explain 3 ways to clean costume jewelry with 2 home tricks and a chemical product that we have tested on our own products.

1. Clean your jewelry with baking soda

2. Clean your jewelry with vinegar + baking soda

3. Liquid product for cleaning jewelry

If your jewelry is very blackened or oxidized, we recommend that you directly use method number 2, which is more effective.

Clean jewelry with baking soda

First step: Heat water

In a pot, heat water and remove from heat before it boils.

Second step: Cover a container with aluminum foil

Take a flat-bottomed container such as a pot and line it with aluminum foil.

Third step: Put our jewelry in the container

Relatively separated from each other and cover with baking soda on top.

Step 4: Add hot water

In the container where we have the jewelry, we put the year and add two more tablespoons of baking soda on top.

Fifth step: Leave it to act for 10-15 minutes without touching.

During these 10 to 15 minutes the baking soda will do its magic on our jewelry so we must be patient.

Step Six: Scrub our pieces with a toothbrush

One by one on our own hand and dry with kitchen paper. You will see that the paper turns black. Repeat until we see that the piece regains its color and the paper is not dirty.

Step Seven: Dry the Piece

With a cloth (from glasses) or a small piece of old cloth.

Clean costume jewelry with vinegar and baking soda

This trick is foolproof and even works to remove rust and recover parts 100%. It is very similar to the first one with some differences in preparation.

1. First step: heat water to boiling point and remove from heat before it boils.
2. Second step: In the same pot where we heated the water, we add half a cup of baking soda.
3. Third step : Once the baking soda is inside, we add half a cup of alcohol vinegar and we will see that the water begins to bubble.
4. Step four: When we see that the preparation begins to produce bubbles, we throw the jewelry into the container and stir gently to mix everything.
5. Fifth step: Let it rest for 15 minutes.
6. Step Six: One by one, we are going to take our pieces and scrub them with a toothbrush, then dry them with a paper towel and let them rest on top of a dry cloth.
7. Step 7: Rub each piece with a cloth (for glasses) or a small piece of cloth to restore its shine.
8. And that's it!

Product for cleaning silver and gold jewelry

As we anticipated in the introduction of the article, we are going to show you a product that we have tried and found to be miraculous.

This is a silver jewellery cleaner made in England that will leave your jewellery looking like new. It comes with a dipping basket, cleaning brush and silver polishing cloth.

Pros? It is instant and in 2 minutes of application the work will be done for silver jewelry, 1 minute for 925 Sterling Silver jewelry plated in gold.

It is important to note that for gold-plated jewelry, the application should be less, otherwise the plating may be lost.

Cons? The price is a bit expensive, as it costs €27.90

Customer reviews of the product on Amazon?

These are some of the comments people have left about this silver jewelry cleaner.

By Lia's opinion on the jewelry cleaning product?

We recommend having it to revive silver jewelry, but not for routine use on all of our jewelry.

We believe that to extend the life of our jewelry it is better to use the neutral soap method as a "regular" cleaner, the bicarbonate method to clean blackened and oxidized jewelry and this last product as a specific method for silver and gold jewelry, but not a regular one.

How to clean costume jewelry regularly

The truth is that it is difficult to prevent jewelry from darkening since contact with our skin, depending on our pH and the exposure time, will make our jewelry turn black or greenish, and can even dye our skin.

The first product that we can try and is available to everyone is neutral soap with warm water. We make this first recommendation in case you do not have any of the 3 products that we are going to recommend below at your disposal:

We mainly recommend using neutral soap and warm water as a method for routine care of our jewelry. Do this routine from time to time to keep them in good condition and remove the pH traces that our skin can leave on them.

Here we recommend that you leave the jewellery to rest in a container with warm water for 10 minutes and then change the water. Put warm water back in, rub a hard-bristled brush with soap and then use the soapy bristles to go over our jewellery in a circular motion. Take each piece one by one and rub it individually.

You will notice that the soapy water turns from white to black, so repeat the process 2 or 3 times until the water is no longer stained. Then, use a cloth to dry the jewelry one by one and let it rest on a piece of cloth to dry completely.

How to care for, protect and polish jewelry

One trick we have been taught is, once we have completed the process of cleaning the jewelry that we mentioned earlier, to let it dry overnight in contact with fresh air and then use Vaseline to protect it.

Protect and give shine to our jewelry

We put a little Vaseline on our fingers and gently rub the pieces one by one, leaving a thin layer on the surface. You will see how the jewelry regains its shine, nourishes itself and protects sensitive parts such as the metal clasps of earrings, necklaces or bracelets.

Once we have covered all the jewelry with Vaseline, we let the jewelry rest again for half a day or a night on a small piece of dry cloth and then we put it back in our jewelry boxes.

It is important to use jewelry boxes where the pieces have their place and space because if we mix all the jewelry in a drawer or box and the different materials come into contact with each other (silver, gold, gold-plated 925 silver, brass, etc.) they can be affected and cause negative effects.

Protect our jewelry with delicate chains

Many people recommend using clear nail polish to protect jewelry with chains or delicate metal clasps. We haven't tried it yet, but if you have, we encourage you to tell us about your experience!

Remember that this is just a guide and the most important thing is to choose earrings that you like and feel comfortable on you.

There are several types of face shapes, and certain types of earrings look better on each shape.

This is all we have today and we hope you find it useful!