Baking soda is an excellent DIY cleaner perfect for cleaning precious metals like gold, silver, and gold-plated and silver-plated jewelry. You can even use it on costume jewelry to keep your jewelry pieces shiny.
Because gold is a soft metal, it is easily scratched even with a light abrasive like baking soda.
Never use toothpaste, baking soda, or a commercial metal cleaner on gold. If you use these abrasives, you may scratch the gold.
Vinegar and gold jewelry—the perfect pair! Who knew that a simple ingredient like vinegar could make your jewelry sparkle and shine just as brilliantly as it did when you first brought it home?
Cleaning your gold and gemstone jewelry couldn't be easier with white vinegar. Simply drop the jewelry into a jar of vinegar and let sit for 10 to15 minutes, agitating occasionally.
Baking soda is a natural and environmentally friendly way to clean your gold. You can use a baking soda-vinegar or a baking soda-dish soap solution to clean your gold pieces. You can also use baking soda and boiling water to clean your gold. If your gold contains pearls, avoid cleaning it with baking soda.
Gold doesn't tarnish, but with constant exposure to sweat, body oils, make-up, and other chemical substances, it may become dull and sullied. The easiest method to give your gold back its unmistakable shine is to put your ornaments in a bowl of warm water with a dash of mild dish washing detergent.
"Baking soda is basic and vinegar is acidic," says Bock. "When you put them together you get mostly water and sodium acetate. But really, just mostly water." Plus, vinegar causes baking soda to foam up. If stored in a closed container, the mixture can explode.
Nitric acid (HNO3) is used for cleaning silver and gold ornaments.
Use Aluminium Foil And Baking Soda For A Deep Clean
Not only that but this method is gentle on the gold plating because it doesn't require abrasive contact with the jewellery. The chemical reaction between the solution and the jewellery will remove any tarnish whilst not being harsh on the gold plating.
Toothpaste is abrasive and has a hardness of around 3/4 on the Mohs Scale of Hardness. Metals such as gold and silver are softer, so toothpaste can actually scratch damage your gold and silver jewellery. Not to mention, the chemicals in the flavour oils used in toothpaste are corrosive to metal.
Lemon Juice Is a Great Solution
Yes, it can be used as a brass and gold cleaner.
While the gold itself won't tarnish in water, the non-metals or alloy in it will. You can wear your 18k gold in the shower, but it's not advisable. Water won't damage the jewellery, but it may reduce the shine. If you keep exposing your 18k gold to water, its appearance will change over time.
Dish Detergent & Warm Water
The best homemade jewelry cleaning solution is a mixture of a few drops of Dawn dish detergent in warm, not hot, water. Let the piece sit in the solution for a few minutes, longer if it's very dirty, then gently scrub with a new, baby-size, soft toothbrush.
Finally, we suggest both for silver and gold plated items, not to use abrasive substances such as lemon, vinegar, salt, parmesan, cola, because they tend to corrode the surfaces.
Does Coke Clean Gold? This is a handy and maybe unexpected tip, but Coke does indeed clean gold. You can dip your gold in a small bowl of Coke and make sure that it is completely covered. Leave the gold plated jewelry in the solution for 10 minutes and then rub with a soft cloth and rinse.
You can also fill a cup or glass with white vinegar, and drop your gold in it, let it soak for 5-8 minutes, take it out and rinse with water. If the metal has changed its color even slightly, then the gold is not pure but if it keeps shining, then the gold is pure.
If your gold piece turns black or green when the vinegar is on it, or if it starts to smoke or fizzle at all when the vinegar touches it, it is most likely not real gold. If your gold piece does not change colors and does not fizzle or react to the vinegar in any way, it is probably real.
White vinegar rapidly dissolves most metals, but gold resists corrosion from acid and vinegar. Vinegar won't break down or affect gold if it's soaked for 15 minutes or less. Iron, alloys, and other base metals will readily corrode or discolor in that time frame.