January 17, 2023

How to Clean Silver With Baking Soda

Silver has been a favorite cutlery and jewelry material for ages. We respect it for its noble gleam and antibacterial properties. However, maintaining the silver items in their original luxurious shine can be an uphill task if you don’t know the trick. The point is that in contact with air and its elements, silver oxidizes, loses its shine, and blackens. Luckily, this process is reversible thanks to easy cleaning techniques that use simple supplies such as baking soda, salt, and aluminum foil, which can be found in most homes. This is the way our grandmothers kept their family silverware in gorgeous condition. So if you’ve got tarnished silver jewelry or household items that need a good polish, don’t be tempted by commercial, chemicals-loaded solutions. Instead, try our easy and environment-friendly techniques of cleaning silver that dissolve tarnish in the blink of an eye.

Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Silverware

Sterling or plated ones, obtained as a gift, inherited or bought at thrift stores, silver household items are precious to us because they have a story behind them. Sometimes it is a family history we would like to keep. That is why it is so heartbreaking to see priceless family silverware losing its shine and becoming unsightly blackish due to oxidation.

Air is not the only culprit of silver tarnish. For example, your favorite silver earrings could have blackened because of cosmetic products you used (containing sulfur or oils) or even perfumes. Or your family’s silver baby cup you got from your mom and would like to pass on to your daughter could get tarnished because it was used with the wrong foods. We will discuss the foods causing silver blackening later on, but firstly, let’s get straight to the silver cleaning techniques.

Tips for Cleaning Silver with Baking Soda

When it comes to cleaning silverware, baking soda beats most cutting-edge commercial cleaning supplies, and not only in terms of safety. It is really the most eco-friendly way to remove tarnish from silver. This cleaning method is based on a chemical reaction that produces neither toxic fumes nor aggressive chemicals. You can handle cleaning silver with baking soda with your bare hands without ever worrying about getting an irritation.

It is also important that cleaning silver with baking soda neither scratches nor dulls the surface of silverware. This cleaning technique erases tarnish from silver in a blink of an eye, without any scrubbing or even breaking a sweat, leaving you speechless about the result. And… existed like a child during their first chemistry experiment.

Last but not least, cleaning silverware with baking soda is cheap. Probably, you won’t even need to go shopping as you might already have all the necessary supplies at home. Here are our best four methods of cleaning silver items with baking soda and the list of supplies you need.

Supplies You’ll Need for Cleaning Silverware

Container, big pot, baking tray, or even your kitchen sink (depending on the amount of silverware you want to clean in one batch)
Baking soda
Aluminum foil
Salt
Boiling water
Kitchen tongs
Sponge
Clean soft cloth for drying and buffing

Four Fast and Proven Methods of Cleaning Silver with Baking Soda

1. Cleaning Silver with Baking Soda Paste

This cleaning method is preferable for large tarnished silver items such as trays, candlesticks, mirror frames, large plates, or other large antique silver pieces. Baking soda paste has a mild abrasive effect on silver tarnish, easily restoring silver gleam without any elbow grease from your side.

Mix half a box of baking soda with water to make a paste (don’t overdo it with water; it shouldn’t be runny, but rather wet).
Take a soft cloth or a clean sponge, dip it into the paste and gently rub tarnished silver items with it until the tarnish disappears.
Leave the paste on for half an hour if the item is heavily stained.
Thoroughly rinse the item with water, ensuring no baking soda is left in the crevices.
Wipe dry each item with a clean, soft rag before storing.

2. Cleaning Silver with Baking Soda and Aluminum Foil

This method works best on smaller silver jewelry items, such as rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, napkin rings, or cutlery pieces. The trick lies in using a combo of aluminum foil and baking soda, which starts an electrolytic reaction transferring that ugly tarnish from silver item to foil.

Choose a container for cleaning. It must be something resistant to boiling water and roomy enough to clean all the tarnished items (a baking tray, a large pot/bowl, or even a disposable aluminum pan). Alternatively, you can use your clean kitchen sink clogged with a drain stopper.
Line the container with aluminum foil (shiny side up).
Arrange your silver items on the foil without overlapping.
Sprinkle at least two tablespoons of baking soda over your items (you can use more).
Pour in boiling water until it completely covers the silverware and let it soak for 15 minutes, which is usually enough for a miraculous silver transformation.
Remove the silver pieces from the container using kitchen tongs and rinse with clean water, ensuring no baking soda or residue is left in the crannies.
Wipe dry with a clean, soft rag before storing.

3. Cleaning Silver with Baking Soda, Aluminum Foil, and Salt

This cleaning technique will perfectly work for smaller silver items such as jewelry or flatware that fit into a pot. Have kids? Involve them in the process if you don’t want to lose a chance to give them an exciting chemistry lesson and show that cleaning can be fun.

Line a pot of appropriate size with aluminum foil.
Arrange silverware on the foil without overlapping.
Pour in enough water to cover the items.
Add two tablespoons of baking soda and two tablespoons of salt and bring the pot to a boil.
Let it boil for five minutes.
Remove transformed silverware with tongs from the pot.
Rinse and wipe dry like in the previous method.

4. Cleaning Large Silver Items by Wrapping Them

Try this method if you have large and heavily tarnished silver items to clean, for example, a tray, a candlestick, or a coffee pot. This technique guarantees tight contact with aluminum foil and, therefore, deals with tarnish better.

Wrap all your items with aluminum foil ensuring it is the shiny side that contacts silverware, not the dull one.
Put the wrappings into a pot of appropriate size or container.
Sprinkle one cup of baking soda over wrapped items.
Pour in boiling water until it completely covers the wrappings.
Let them soak in hot water for half an hour.
Remove, unwrap, rinse, and wipe dry to store.

Extra Silver Cleaning Tips

If you usually use rubber gloves for cleaning, make an exception this time because rubber causes corrosion to silver, rendering it black. You can rest assured that your hands will be fine, as the cleaning methods suggested do not involve any harsh chemicals. Also, it is bad practice to store silver flatware or jewelry in drawers with rubber bands or rubber seals.

Other items that can harm silver include:

Olives
Eggs
Fruit juices
Salad dressing
Vinegar
Skin medications containing sulfur
Skin products containing oils and even natural human skin oils.

So if you want to reduce the time that you usually spend cleaning your silver pieces, our cleaning techniques can be very handy. Need kitchen cleaning or routine cleaning? Contact us today at (212) 470-4961 to schedule maid service in NYC.

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on September 13th, 2021, and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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