How to clean your sterling silver jewelry

People often ask me, “How should I clean this?”  It’s a good question, because while sterling silver is a beautiful, affordable metal, it has the unfortunate quality of developing tarnish over time.  Luckily I’ve developed a few tricks to clean silver, and I am happy to share.

Let’s start with the easiest case: if the piece you are cleaning is unoxidized (white) and has no pearls or other gems or additions you can clean it with any silver cleaner.  This includes any of the methods I will mention below, as well as the jewelry “dips”, ultrasonic cleaners- anything!  My personal recommendation is to use Wright’s Silver Cream, which you can buy at hardware stores, department stores, or even grocery stores.  This lovely-light-purple cream polish gets everything bright and shiny but is still gentle.  It comes with a little sponge that you can use to apply the cream.  If your jewelry has hard to reach areas or little corners that tarnish just loves to hide in, you can dip a Q-Tip or even a toothpick in the cream and work it into any cracks or corners.

This stuff is the best.

If you jewelry has pearls, I would recommend regular use of a polishing cloth or polishing wipe.  Pearls can get wet- in fact, sometimes it is good for them to get wet- but I only recommend using the Wright’s Cream in extreme cases.  The strongest polishing cloth I’ve found is the Sunshine Cloth.  This cloth will really get your metal clean, however I would exercise caution when using it on oxidized sterling.  It is so strong that it might remove the oxidized finish.  If your piece is oxidized, instead I would recommend a Connoisseur’s Cloth or Wipes.  Their cloths are gentler and have 2 sides- a cleaning side and a polishing side.  The polishing side is great for oxidized sterling because it will not disturb the finish.  The wipes are good too- these small disposable cloths are great for a single polish.  You can fold them up and work them into small areas.

One last tip- to prevent tarnishing, keep your jewelry in a small sealed ziplock bag.  Tarnish happens quickest when silver is exposed to air and humidity, and so by keeping it in a sealed environment you can significantly reduce the need to polish.

Do you have any other tricks to share?  Post ’em in the comments section!

This cloth is very soft and provides a very strong polish.

This is a very soft and gentle cloth

Individual use wipes are gentle and easy to use