How to Clean Silver

I love Silver.  I love it polished or tarnished; to me it is always pretty, but polished is best. I have some lovely silver that I have been blessed with from my Mom, my hubby and my Grandmother.  I treasure it, and love to use it for company or the holidays... and sometimes I even use it on an ordinary day,   because I think you should enjoy your blessings, and not keep them shut away only to be used on rare occasions.

My Mom gave me this silver several years ago, and I have loved having it and using it.

She got it when she  married  my Dad, and now I consider it a family heirloom.

This is some silver that I got from my Granny.

 I think it is very pretty.

I usually polish my silver around the holidays.....

cuz,  that's when I use it the most.

I have been looking for the little pitcher in this picture for quite some time.  I found it recently in a storage box. It goes with a tea set that Steve gave me years ago.  

It was very tarnished when I pulled it out of that box.

 I usually use  "Wrights Silver Cream" to clean and polish my silver.  It is a great product;

but I decided to try a silver cleaning recipe that I had been reading about.  It worked amazingly!

Here is all you have to do:

1. Put some aluminum foil in a container large enough to hold water and silver; such as a  pot or a large ceramic or glass bowl.  I had a large piece of aluminum foil that I saved from something, and I just used that and lined a pot with it.

2.  Add 1 Tablespoon Baking Soda, 

 3.  Add 1 Tablespoon Salt.

4.  Place your silver in the pot.

5.  Pour boiling water over the top.

Keep pouring until it is submerged.  It will begin to smell like ammonia.

6.  Swish the silver so that all is covered.  Allow to sit in the solution until the tarnish is gone (about 1- 20 minutes... my own experience had an immediate response to everything silver I put in it).  Just a little reminder, the silver will be very hot at this point; use a wash cloth or some tongs to remove it from the hot water.

The tarnish on this pitcher came off in the first 60 seconds.  I was amazed.  

Look at the difference.

This one went back in for another dunk to get the circle of tarnish off, then I rinsed it with cool water and wiped it  clean and dry with a soft cloth.

 

Clean and polish the silver until not only  the tarnish is gone, but also any yellow; it will look almost white.

Isn't it pretty?

If you have silver that you do not want the black patina taken out of the crevices, don't use this method of cleaning, because it will take every last bit of black out.  The above two pieces are examples of two different designs.  The one in the foreground is meant to have the black, so I only polished the spatula end of this one.

This little spoon belonged to my Grandmother; see how the tarnish is set into the crevices?  Look how this solution got the dark tarnish out of the crevices; it is the one on the bottom of the picture below.

I  like the "Wrights Silver Cream", it really is one of the best I've tried, and puts a beautiful polish on silver;  but it would have taken a lot of elbow grease with the "Wrights" to get all of that tarnish out. This is a wonderful silver cleaning solution, and easier and less expensive than anything you could buy. It is also great to use with silver jewelry; but I haven''t tried that yet.... that is my next experiment.  If you are cleaning something with silver plate, it will clean up well, unless the silver is worn or rubbed off. 

Silver Cleaning Solution

1 pot or container to put your cleaning solution and silver in.
Aluminum foil
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon Salt
Boiling Hot water to fill


Place Aluminum foil into the pot (it doesn't have to completely cover the pot).  Add the Baking Soda
and Salt.  Put the silver in.  Put your hot water in so that it covers the silver.  Let sit from 1 to 20 minutes until tarnish has come off.