How to clean silver at home from the black. Video

How to clean silver at home? Nowadays, silver objects (jewelry, cutlery, stylish knick-knacks) can be found in almost every home.

Initially beautiful and shiny, they eventually begin to fade, lose their luster and become covered with an unsightly touch of bluish, black or greenish color.

The surface of some silverware acquires a yellowish color with a scattering of dark spots. Is it possible, without using the services of specialists, to restore the attractiveness of products made from this noble metal? To begin, let's find out the reasons for their darkening.

The reasons for the darkening of silver jewelry

1. Silver refers to noble metals, which means that it is inert to the effects of alkalis and organic acids, however, due to prolonged contact with air, the surface of silver jewelry is covered with a thin film of sulfide coating, due to which they darken and lose their attractive shine.
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2. The composition of the secretion of sweat glands (the composition of sweat, and not the evil eye and spoilage provoke their darkening) can strongly influence the appearance of jewelry that has close contact with the skin. With an excess of nitrogen in human sweat, silver jewelry practically does not change its appearance, but the increased sulfur content leads to their rapid darkening. Sulfur, a component of a number of cosmetics, can provoke a similar effect.
3. Silver jewelry does not like too humid air and too frequent contact with water. In order to protect your jewelry from the rapid appearance of dark scurf, you should remove them before swimming in the river or before taking a bath.

How to choose the right way to clean silver?

In order not to make mistakes when cleaning a silver product, one should be guided by two main factors.

• Knowledge of the alloy from which it is made. Silver can be:

1. sterling (containing 7.5% copper additive),
2. monetary,
3. filigree,
4. blackened
5. matte.

• The presence of decorative inserts and stones.

Professionals are well aware of the special sensitivity of these stones to the effects of aggressive alkalis, acids and other chemical solutions used to clean household silver. Improper cleaning can lead to hopeless damage to natural stones.

How to clean blackened silverware?

How to clean silver from black?

• The best way to clean the dark silverware - boiling it with foil and soda.

1. To do this, you need to take a pot of sufficient volume, line its walls and bottom with a layer of food foil and place blackened tableware inside.
2. After sprinkling baking soda with the surface of table silver (3-4 tablespoons is enough) and covering them with an additional sheet of foil, boiling water is poured into the pan and brought to a boil.
3. Turning off the heat, leave the pan for a quarter of an hour.
4. After that, silver should be well rinsed in a very large amount of running cold water.

• To easily rid black patches, you need to stock up on some amount of any table salt, baking soda, foil and any shampoo for washing dishes.

1. Putting the darkened silver jewelry in a container lined with food foil, they are laid out in a single layer so that they do not touch each other.
2. Sprinkle with a mixture of salt and soda, add a small amount of dishwashing shampoo and pour boiling water on it.
3. Ten minutes later, decorations can be rinsed under running cold water.

• You can clean the silver ring liquid ammonia mixed with a pinch of chalkbut:

1. Self-cooked gruel of these components must be applied to the ring.
2. Gently brush it with an old toothbrush with very soft bristles.
3. Then rinse with plenty of cold water. In the same way, you can restore the beauty of the smallest silver objects.

Blackened silver a coin You can get rid of blackness with the help of a regular student eraser: you just need to carefully rub them a coin. In order not to scratch the surface of the coin, you need to take an eraser with a small amount of abrasive substance (as a rule, such erasers are painted white).

• Heavily blackened silver cross (being in extremely close contact with the skin of the person wearing it) can be cleaned with a more effective composition:

1. Mix in equal proportions by mixing ammonia, baking soda and tooth powder.
2. Having thoroughly treated the surface of the product with a soft brush and achieving the disappearance of blackness.
3. Wash under running water.

If you could not find the tooth powder, you can replace it with toothpaste (it is no less effective in coping with strong blackness).

• Clean as effectively dark silver You can use a small amount of lipstick. Since it always contains the smallest abrasive particles, its use will not cause the slightest harm to the surface of the product being cleaned.

1. Taking a piece of soft cloth, put on it a little lipstick.
2. They polish the metal to the complete disappearance of the black plaque.
3. The remains of lipstick can be easily washed off with a solution of toilet soap.

How to clean silver at home - video:

As for cleaning products from blackened or filigree silver, great care should be exercised here, since the complete elimination of blackness will deprive the product of a noble patina, which makes it particularly exquisite and inimitable.

Rules for cleaning silver jewelery with stones

How to clean silver from black, if the product is decorated with stones? Silver jewelry with inserts of amber, pearls and coral is best, of course, to give a professional cleaning, where experts will work with them carefully and competently.

In the absence of such an opportunity, it is necessary to follow a number of simple rules:

• For cleaning silver jewelry with jewelry inserts made of natural stones, it is best to use special products purchased in jewelry stores, since they will not only help to achieve a good result, but also create a protective film on the surface of the product processing.
• Silver items inlaid with stones (for example, silver with pearls) can be cleaned at home using a solution prepared in the following way:

1. A bar of laundry soap is rubbed on a coarse grater, turning into chips, add a little water and a few drops of ammonia.
2. The resulting mixture is set on fire and, brought to a boil, is immediately turned off.
3. The cooled composition process the product, applying it with a toothbrush with soft bristles.
4. They get rid of the blackening around the stone, rubbing it several times with a cotton swab soaked in the same tool.

• Jewelers do not recommend wearing cleaned products: they should either be kept in a case for some time (in order to so that they are covered with a natural protective film), or carried to a jewelry workshop, where they will be applied a layer of special varnish.

Ways to lighten silverware

1. The silver chain can be made much lighter by acting on it with ammonia or citric acid, placing the jewelry in a 10% solution of these substances.
2. Some housewives boil silver jewelry in a solution of citric acid, consisting of 100 grams of this component and 400 ml of water. Silverware is immersed in the solution and boiled in a water bath for 30 minutes. After completing the procedure, the products are washed and dried.
3. Silver products of complex configuration can be cleaned and lightened with sulfuric acid. It is enough to boil the ornament in its weak (5-10%) solution.
4. The same effect can be achieved by treating soiled decoration with ordinary table vinegar. Heated 6% vinegar, the product is wiped with a cotton swab moistened with this agent.

Folk cleaners silverware

• The original beauty can be quickly returned to a silver item by a proven folk method.: after rubbing one raw potato on a fine grater and adding some water to it, the soiled decoration is put into the resulting gruel. After about ten minutes, it should be removed and, after rinsing with water, carefully polished with a soft cloth.

• For cleaning silver items, the potato boiled in its uniform has long been used: darkened objects by a quarter hours, dipped in potato broth, then thoroughly washed with water and rubbed to a shine with a piece of wool cloth.
• Garlic husks will help to cope with heavy pollution of silver jewelry. First, pour in water, bring it to a boil, then silver is placed in a concentrated broth and continue boiling until blackness is completely eliminated. This procedure can take from 20 to 50 minutes. Purified silver is removed, placed under a flowing stream and rubbed dry.
• Silver earrings will again become beautiful and shiny if subjected to the following procedure. Taking a couple of teaspoons of salt, mix them with the shells of two raw eggs, add 1000 ml of cold water, bring the mixture to a boil, and then immediately remove from heat. Earrings, which have been thoroughly washed in hot water, are dipped in hot broth for half a minute, then rinsed and wiped and polished with a piece of wool matter.
• Silver, to shine, in the people always cleaned with soda and dental powder. To do this, they made a very thick detergent consisting of an equal amount of baking soda, tooth powder and a few drops of water. The resulting mixture rubbed silver objects, and then polished to shine with soft cloth.
• You can try to peel the soiled jewelry with a regular lemon. Taking fresh lemon, you need to squeeze out all the juice from it and, after filtering, pour it into a small bowl with silver decorations that need to be cleaned. After half an hour, the decorations are removed, thoroughly washed with running water and wiped dry.
• Modern housewives to clean their darkened silver have learned to use Coca-Cola. It has long been established that this drink is extremely harmful for the human body, but it fits perfectly to fight the black bloom on silver. It is only necessary to fill them with silverware and boil them for no more than 5 minutes. After this simple manipulation of table silver will shine like new, absolutely without any friction on it.

How to eliminate the effect of iodine on silver jewelry?

As a result of exposure to halogen (at home, it usually comes from iodine) silver products become very ugly yellow color, which is very difficult to get rid of. Is it possible to clear silver from yellowness?

• Yellowed product can be sprinkled with potato starch or overlaid with slices of raw potatoes. Under the influence of starch, iodine stains will change their color and become more imperceptible bluish color, merging with the color of silver.
• You can expose the spoiled product to a soap solution (200 ml) with the addition of a teaspoon of ammonia. After a 30-minute exposure to this agent, the ornament is cleaned with baking soda or toothpaste, and then rinsed thoroughly and wiped with a soft woolen rag.

Can silver products be cleaned with hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid?

• Those who decide to clean silver products with hydrogen peroxide need to be aware of the fact that the substance has a beneficial effect only on pure silver, which in our homes is practically is impossible. It is known that all the silver objects that we use are made of various alloys of silver with other metals. Interacting with hydrogen peroxide, these metals can be oxidized. As a result, instead of cleaning silver, we can achieve even greater darkening.

  In order to prevent an unrecoverable error and not to oxidize your silver product, it is necessary to treat only a small piece of its surface with peroxide. If it, when it is oxidized, begins to actively turn black, you should immediately abandon this undertaking and use a more acceptable detergent.

• It is also undesirable to clean silver products (especially coins) with nitric acid. Being an extremely powerful reagent, it is capable of removing not only undesirable oxides, but also the smallest details of a drawing applied to a coin or jewel.