Depending on the climate, your body ph, hand soaps,  hair products, and various other factors, silver jewelry can tarnish rather quickly.  It is also not always easy to polish them with a polishing cloth and get into all the little nooks and crannies.  But fear not, you dont have to go and find your mothers old bottle of silver dip polish anymore!

One of my favorite designers, Amber Maher of Mani Designs, recently passed along an amazingly simple old-school chemistry solution: Baking Soda, Salt, Aluminum Foil & Boiling Water!  We tested out our first batch here in the shop last week to get some of our Mani Designs pieces ready to be photographed for the web.  Check out the results.  LOVE IT!

Put boiling water into a dish or pan with aluminum foil, baking soda, and salt.  The oxidation moves from the silver piece onto the aluminum foil!  We have a hot plate here in the shop so we use an electric kettle.  The trick is to keep the water hot.  We had to refresh the batch with newly heated water a few times while testing the process on a few pieces but if you do one large batch all at once, you should be good!

before

after

Filed under: diy, jewelry