Cleaning jewelry with lemon and baking soda
By simply applying lemon juice all over your jewels and rubbing the pieces with a dry cloth, the lemon will naturally brighten up your pieces. For more heavily tarnished items, try adding some baking soda to the lemon juice for an extra helping hand.
Never use toothpaste, baking soda, or a commercial metal cleaner on gold. If you use these abrasives, you may scratch the gold. Never use bleach.
Mix 1/2 cup vinegar and two tablespoons of baking soda in a small bowl. Allow your jewelry to soak in the white vinegar and baking soda solution for a few hours. Then, rinse the jewelry with clean water and pat dry with a cotton cloth before storing your pieces away.
Chlorine is gold's worst enemy: with repeated exposure, chlorine will weaken your gold jewelry's structure and eventually lead to it breaking. Make sure to take your jewelry off before getting in a pool or spa. Cover or remove while cleaning: household cleaners with acids or abrasives will damage your jewelry's finish.
Lemon juice has no effect on solid gold. However, it is too abrasive for gold-plated jewelry.
Lemon juice.
Place item in the bowl for 10-15 minutes. The magic element in this household hack is the acid from the lemon juice, however, if you find it hasn't eaten all of the dirt and grime away, give your jewelry a quick rinse and place it back in the mixture for a few additional minutes.
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.
Acid test.
An acid test can reveal the karat of solid gold jewelry, but it can also show whether jewelry is solid gold or gold-plated. With an acid test, a small sample of the jewelry is removed and exposed to acid to induce a color change. The resulting colors indicate which type of metal the jewelry is made of.
Polishing Gold
Standard commercial gold polishes will quickly and safely clean gold jewelry when applied with a soft chamois cloth. If your gold jewelry has begun to tarnish, you can remove the tarnish by making a lukewarm water and dish soap mixture with just a few drops of ammonia.
Jewelers use ultrasonic cleaners with high frequency sound waves and chemicals, which create bubbles that latch on to the dirt on the diamond. The high frequency sound waves pull the dirt away from the stone and bring them up to the surface.
Salt and baking soda are a surprisingly effective combination for cleaning gold. When combined, they create a chemical reaction that helps break down tarnish. Use equal parts of each — say, one tablespoon salt and one tablespoon baking soda — as well as a drop or two of dish soap if you'd like, Martin says.
Moreover, lemon juice is considered to be highly corrosive. If lemon juice comes into an extensive contact with the metals or metallic containers (even metals like stainless steel quality), containers can lead to micro-particle metal leaching.
2 Don't do the Duo of Lemon Juice and Vinegar
Their chemical make-up can do wonders on a number of cleaning projects but your jewelry shouldn't be one of them. Sure it can get your jewelry clean, but the acidity and abrasiveness can damage silver. Some precious stones can be damaged too.
A simple soap and water solution is all you need to clean plain gold necklaces, bracelets, earrings, bangles, and other ornaments. Cleaning your plain gold jewellery with soap water rids it of accumulated dirt and oils. This method is one of the fastest ways to restore your gold jewellery's shine without any hassles.
To create more brilliant gold colors and other shades and hues, you will need to mix different ratios of colors. For example, including more yellow, will make the color brighter. This can also be achieved by including more white paint.
Vinegar is incredibly corrosive. So, if your gold jewelry is made of a different metal or alloy, the vinegar will cause it to tarnish. Gold is a non-reactive metal, so it will not react to vinegar.
Often the cleaning product doesn't hurt the gold itself but rather the metals mixed with the gold. The chemical will cause it to crack and break because it weakens the bond and allows breakage of the metal. Chlorine and detergents can slowly erode the finish and polish of precious gems, as well.
Gold jewelry should be gently cleaned weekly to keep it looking shiny and new. All you need to clean most gold jewelry is warm water, dish soap, and a soft-bristled toothbrush. Rose gold and white gold can be cleaned in the same manner as yellow gold.