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.
For silver that is heavily tarnished, mix a paste of three parts baking soda to one part water. Wet the silver and apply the cleaner with a soft, lint-free cloth (not paper towels). Work the paste into the crevices, turning the cloth as it gets gray. Rinse and buff dry.
Vinegar and Baking Soda
For silverware, jewelry, and other small silver items, soak them in a glass bowl with a half-cup of distilled white vinegar and two tablespoons of baking soda. Let the silver soak for three hours, rinse the items, and dry and polish them with a microfiber cloth.
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.
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.
Vinegar and Bicarbonate of Soda
Replace the water with vinegar in your paste. The vinegar will remove heavy tarnish, and the bicarbonate of soda will lightly buff your silver to a wonderful shine!
Clean Silver with Dish Soap and Water
The key to cleaning silver without damaging it is to avoid abrasion. Cleaning silver with harsh abrasive products like chlorine bleach, or storing it using rubber bands and newspaper, is a no-no.
Polishing Silver
The most common is using a soft towel and a silver polish cream like Hagerty's or Miror.
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.
Silver turns black when kept in the air because it reacts with sulphur compounds such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S) present in air. The phenomenon is called corrosion and, for silver in particularly, is called tarnishing.
Anti-tarnish bags and polishing cloths can help minimalize the tarnish to your sterling silver jewelry. But, when the inevitable occurs and you notice your jewelry has darkened or become dull, there is GOOD NEWS! Tarnish is not permanent… AND it is easily removed!
Polishes will damage gilding. Silver dips, if used without care, will over-clean silver that has a chased, engraved, or embossed decoration. If the object is silver plated, any method of tarnish removal may be very damaging.
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.
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.
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.
Regular care of antique silver is key to effective cleaning and items should be routinely dusted with a soft cloth or brush. A baby's hair brush is gentle enough not to scratch or mark the silver and a baby's toothbrush or cotton bud will help in hard to reach places.
If you leave it in over the recommended amount of time, it won't harm your jewelry, however if a chemical reaction does occur that discolors your jewelry, use a polishing cloth to remove the color and restore the original color.
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).
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.
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.