Hi! Can anyone tell me the best way to clean sterling silver jewelry? Thanks!!

First, does it really need to be cleaned? Sometimes tarnish looks good in crevices. And other stuff like makeup or just accumulated grime can come off in warm sudsy water.

Silver polish is one way. I've even cleaned handmade silver chains with a bit on a soft cloth that got rubbed all over the chain and into the links. Then washed it off with warm soapy water.

Silver polish will remove a bit of silverfrom the surface.

Many silver jewelry pieces are coated with irridium. That will keep it bright and shiny until it wears off and then the silver starts to tarnish. But if you clean it too soon, you are wearing off the irridium, too.

I use ammonia for lots of metal cleaning. I use it for silver tarnish and it works pretty well. Just put the piece in a small glass or ceramic dish and pour household ammonia over it. Don't leave it there overnight, don't wait for the liquid to stop turning dark: it, too, is dissolving the silver bit by bit.

the easiest and cheapest way to clean sterling silver jewerly is to scrub it with toothpaste!!

this is what I clean all mine with, and it works like a charm. One of my necklaces pendants was tarnished all black, and toothpaste cleaned it up to look shiny & new very easily. If you have any old toothbrushes to scrub it with, it's even easier.

One warning...if the finish is very high shine,or if the piece is real delicate, toothpaste can scratch over time.

(Of course, you can solve this by wearing big honking pieces of silver like I do...)

yeah, I bet you're right, but for my chunky silver rings & pendants it works.

also, if you just need it shined up a bit, go to any store that sells silver jewerly. They probably have one of those special cloths that the jewerly companies give them to shine up their silver, so it looks pretty in the showcase. (That was the case where I used to work, anyway.) If you ask nice & they're not busy, they'd probably let you use it or shine it for you. (Or, at least, I would've.)

a rouge cloth from a jeweler's supply place works really well. they're red, and will get red on your fingers. you rub the piece with the rouge cloth, and then polish it with a soft, clean cloth. if you have gold and silver, you might want to cut the cloth in half, and use a specific half of the cloth for the different metals.

it's not so much the metal you have to be careful with, as the stones, though. pearls scratch easily, and the nacre rubs off. opals scratch very easily, and can crack in hot water. any softer or poorly set stone can be damaged or fall out in an ultrasonic cleaner. for jewelry with stones, plain old hot water and a soft cloth will usually work fine.

stella

On the other hand, dunking an opal in a glass of water for a few days is a good thing...at least, that's what my mom told me...because when they are uber-dry, they're brittle, too.

Sounds wierd, but???

how about a very fine silver chain? I don't want it to get broken or tangled but it's looking almost charcoal grey in colour.

I use foaming silver polish on very fine stuff...I usually get Wright's Silver Polish at the grocery store. It's about $5 for a little plastic pot of it (about the size of a tub of butter)but it lasts forever....it was recommended to me by a friend who ran an antique shop. It's pretty gentle.

The rest of the Wright's line for copper and pewter and brass really works well, too...I've used the polish cloths on fine chains and broke them before, probably because I'm a klutz...

And while I'm pimping polishes :) if you need something heavy duty, for copper, pewter, brass, or stainless steel, there's some stuff called Noxon. It smells awful and is highly toxic, but works really well. I have some VERY heavy copper jewelry that I use it on, and the bonus is that my stainless-steel sink comes out looking great afterward too...:) I would NOT use the stuff on anything dainty, though, because it is SO powerful. The jewelry I use it on is usually of the HUGE CHUNK OF METAL kind. I figure on those, if some of the metal dissolves, who would notice?

Good luck with your chain!