How To Clean Tarnish Off Your Costume Jewellery

/ Ondeane Lourens

A lot of people have fake silver or gold jewellery in between their more expensive jewellery, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, it brings colour and vibrancy to your wardrobe and allows you to have many different jewellery items and not just a few pieces here and there.

If you are anything like me, the silver quite often goes off and starts to get a copper or black look to it. It also makes my fingers, wrists or neck green and I hate it when that happens. I especially hate it when it’s something I really love wearing and now feel like I have to throw it away because it looks terrible.

But never fear! I found a way to combat that problem! We used my daughter’s silver jewellery because hers was the worst. It had gone so dark that she was about ready to stop wearing it. We decided to treat it as a Physics experiment. It was the perfect guinea pig for my test….and WOW! I am so impressed! If I didn’t run out of Bicarbonate of Soda, I would have done all my jewellery right then and there.

Want to know the secret? Then follow the steps below:

What you will need:

– a deep aluminium plate or an aluminium foil-covered bowl

– 1 tablespoon of salt

– 1 tablespoon of baking soda/bicarbonate of soda

– 1 cup of water

– access to a microwave

– a clean rag

– your fake discoloured jewellery

Instructions:

1) Collect all of your fake discoloured jewellery that you need to clean or fix. Be careful if the jewellery contains any gemstones and if it does, you’ll want to avoid getting that area too wet, as water can dissolve the glue under the gemstones which will cause them to fall off.

2) Use a deep aluminium plate. If you don’t have one, you can use a bowl wrapped in aluminium foil. If you decide to go with the latter, make sure the aluminium foil doesn’t tear.

3) Pour the 1 tablespoon of salt and the 1 tablespoon of baking soda/bicarbonate of soda on the plate.

4) You then need to heat 1 cup of water in the microwave for less than 2 minutes. Don’t heat it for more than that because you want it to be hot but not boiling hot. You then, pour the hot water onto the salt and baking soda mixture.

5) Stir the mixture so the ingredients combine and there are no clumps and then wait for about 1 minute for the mixture to completely liquify after stirring it. Be careful not to tear the foil.

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6) Place your jewellery in the mixture. The salt, baking soda, and water mixture should oxidize the tarnish off the jewellery and the silver from the foil or aluminium plate should re-plate the worn spots on your fake silver jewellery.

7) When the tarnish is almost gone, remove the jewellery from the mixture. Don’t be too rushed as this may take a few seconds to up to two minutes, so just be patient. You should start to see your fake gold jewellery becoming shinier and your fake silver jewellery regaining its silver hue.

8) Then lastly, using a clean rag that is soft and dry, remove the rest of the tarnish from your jewellery by wiping it gently. Note that sometimes Verdigris builds up on your costume jewellery, the green gunk that often collects on cheap rings and other jewellery, but by wiping it with a clean rag, it should remove it after the soak it just had in the salt and baking soda mixture.

I must tell you, I was a bit skeptical when I found this at first, but I am definitely most impressed! I think it would have gone even better, if her necklaces had just lost their silver look, but hers has been like that for months now and she keeps wearing them. I definitely recommend it, it was impressive.

I hope you have fun watching your jewellery get back some of its previous life force and be beautiful all over again. Let me know how it goes.

As always, if you would like to place an order for any of my jewellery, please complete the form on my ‘Contact Me’ page. I would also love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Keep your crystal on and your sparkle strong

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24 thoughts on “How To Clean Tarnish Off Your Costume Jewellery”

  3. I tried your “How to clean tarnish off your costume jewellery”…total failure, it cam out worse than when I put it in. I tried three “silver” pieces & I “gold”. I had to throw them out after as it totally destroyed them. Oh in Canada we spell it JEWELLERY too!

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  4. I tried this for cleaning my costume jewelry. Followed the recipe to the T. It ruined it all. It looks worse now than before. It all looks like it’s rusted. So very disappointed.

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  6. I tried it and it definitely worked. It’s too bad that so many people respond only when they have negative comments. I’m sure that it worked for many other people, but they did not bother to mention it. Thank you so much for a great tip!

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  7. So is it both baking soda and bicarbonate of soda. 1 Tablespoon of each. Or just bicarbonate of soda. Could you clarify for me? Or combination of both equivalent to one Tablespoon?

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  9. Hi there. I am from Australia. I received an excellent tip on how to clean your own jewellery from shop that repaired my jewellery. Admitted it was gold but cannot see why would not work on all types of jewellery. 1 part cloudy ammonia & 2 parts boiling water. Add jewellery & give gentle stir for couple of minutes. The results were every bit as good as that cleaning done by jewelers who charge around A$10 for a ring to clean.

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    • Hi Cheryl. I looked it up to see if you can use it on costume jewellery. The advice I found said 1 part ammonia with 6 parts of warm water. Soak for at least 10 minutes. Gently scrub each nook and corner of your jewellery with an old toothbrush. Then soak it again for 10 minutes and brush it again for the second time. Then prepare another solution with one part of ammonia, six parts of warm water, and a few drops of mild detergent or baby shampoo. Stir the solution until foamy. Soak the jewellery pieces in this solution for 10 minutes, then rinse them thoroughly under running tap water. Clean and dry your jewellery with a soft, lint-free cloth. I haven’t tried this process but it’s a little different to the gold process. Thank you for the info!

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