Polishing Silver The most common is using a soft towel and a silver polish cream like Hagerty's or Miror.
BADA, The British Antique Dealers' Association, suggests washing antique silver in a solution of mild detergent in hot water. Once the item has been rinsed in hot water, it can be buffed with a soft cloth. For more heavily tarnished items, a proprietary silver polish can be used, which will clean and protect.
A mild dish soap: The pros recommend using citrus-free and phosphate-free dish soaps like Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. Cotton balls, pads, or swabs: These are best for applying hand sanitizer or polish to your silver to remove tarnish.
Simply mix up a bit of dish soap with warm water and dip in a microfiber cloth. Then, rub the piece of silver – whether it's jewelry or silverware – with the soapy cloth. Rinse it with cold water. Dry with a soft, clean towel.
Cleaning silver with vinegar is safe for your silver, you, and the environment, and it's great for bringing back the sparkle. Vinegar is a natural cleaner, disinfectant, and deodorizer that is tough on tarnish. Here's how to polish silver and get back that sparkling shine with vinegar and baking soda.
Put the silver items in a bowl of appropriate size and cover them with white distilled vinegar. Add baking soda into the bowl – the approximate proportions are 4 tablespoons of baking soda for every cup of vinegar. Leave the silver in the mixture for 1 hour. Rinse with clean water and dry well with soft cotton cloth.
To polish silver jewelry, Lieblich says to use a silver polishing cloth and rub back and forth gently until the tarnish is removed. "Some pieces of silver jewelry are patterned in such a way where a small amount of tarnish is best left on it as it adds depth to the design," she notes.
Simply pour the coke into a bowl and submerge your silver into it. The acid in the coke will quickly remove the tarnish. Keep an eye on it – just a few minutes should be enough. Rinse with warm water and dry carefully with a soft cloth.
You cannot use Brasso to clean sliver because it is too abrasive. Silver is a soft metal, especially in its purer forms. The biggest danger when cleaning silver is using something too abrasive – read on to learn more about how to clean silver without damaging it.
Bear in mind though that retaining a little tarnish often adds character to an antique, so make sure you really want to remove it first. Polishing antique silver helps to keep the patina glowing.
A paste of baking soda and water is all you need to clean larger silver items and remove the dull tarnish. You'll need to rub the paste over the items, but the baking soda does most of the work for you without heavy scrubbing – and no toxic ingredients.
From fine silver plates, platters, and trays to everyday silverware, WD-40 Multi-Use Product works quickly to polish and protect thanks to its oil compounds that help to break up grime, leaving a thin layer of protection against tarnish.
Polishing Silver with milk
Don't cook up delicious food only to serve it with tarnished silver. That's right, you can polish your silverware with milk!
Cleaning silver with Vinegar
Even the most tarnished pieces of silverware can come back to life just by using vinegar. The combination of bicarbonate of soda, aluminium foil and vinegar make for a deadly foe to tarnish and will leave your silverware looking beautiful once more.
When cleaning the whole piece of jewelry, the jeweler typically washes it under a strong blast of steam to get rid of all the grime and dirt. Also, it is widely accepted that steam brightens further up the metal.
You can easily clean silver with aluminum foil, baking soda and hot water. This method uses electrolytic action instead of chemical-polish abrasion and removes the tarnish from oxidized silver without removing any of the underlying metal. This is great for heavily tarnished silver.
Although using baking soda and aluminum foil can quickly remove tarnish from silverware, some dealers caution against using it on antique silver, as it can be too abrasive and ruin the finish (especially if you're unsure of the provenance and it's possible that the pieces are not actually sterling silver).
Combine the baking soda and salt. Then add vinegar and boiling water. The simple (but fun-to-watch) chemical reaction should begin to remove the tarnish immediately. Heavily tarnished pieces may need to soak a little longer.
Real silver turns black gradually and relatively slowly, but vinegar can step it up a notch and speed up the process. So, if you put silver bars in vinegar and leave them for 48 hours, a black residue will form on the surface of each piece. Acidic acid induces oxidation, making the tarnish more pronounced.