looking after jewellery and storing charms

Janey3

Years ago we were given a large box of the ferrero Roch chocs and I utilised the empty goldy coloured box to keep my earrings in, a pair where each choc had lived!

Pollycat

iammumtoone wrote: »

Most of my jewellery is silver (I don't like gold), some of it was expensive. I will look at silvo.

I did googe that you could use baking soda in boling water to remove tarnish, thing is I am not sure if I want to take the risk due to the cost of the items and the stones in some pieces.

I've only used Silvia on items that are very, very tarnished.
I have a proper soft cloth for cleaning silver, it's amazing how much actually comes off.
I buff items up with a pair of trainer socks - one on each hand.

C_J

They have those clear acrylic lipstick holders in £Land.

iammumtoone

C_J wrote: »

They have those clear acrylic lipstick holders in £Land.

Thanks I think ive see pill boxes in there as well, I will take a look.

VfM4meplse

Years ago, I bought some Ferraro Rocher boxes for just this purpose.

These for earrings:





And these from a duty free store for necklace / earring combos:



V useful for colour coding my costume jewellery, and have lasted well. Regrettably I barely wear it now, my interest has long since waned.

LameWolf

iammumtoone wrote: »

I did googe that you could use baking soda in boling water to remove tarnish, thing is I am not sure if I want to take the risk due to the cost of the items and the stones in some pieces.

I definitely wouldn't chance that with anything with stones set in.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

LameWolf wrote: »

I definitely wouldn't chance that with anything with stones set in.

Where there are stones involved, especially valuable or delicate ones, I'd pop into an Independent jeweller and ask their advice - I wouldn't trust somebody in a high street chain to have been trained in that. Especially after an ex decided my antique silver bracelet with green opals needed cleaning, bought a pot of liquid cleaner from one of those places and dropped it inside overnight. The stones were ruined, completely took away their lustre, but as he angrily defended himself, 'the metal's all shiny now'.


For cheap silver though, a little bit of science works. Get a pyrex baking dish, line the bottom with scrunched up aluminium foil, fill with boiling water and about an eggcup's worth of bicarb and then drop the silver items in, let cool/take out with a chopstick and then rinse.

Now, the science bit. Apologies to proper scientists and chemistry teachers.



Pyrex because a) most of us have some and b) it's a non reactive surface

Silver tarnish - silver sulphide - needs to have its chemical bonds broken for it to come away without damaging the silver itself. Bicarb (sodium bicarbonate) does this when in a solution of water. It does it quicker when there is heat involved, hence the boiling water.

Once the bonds are broken, the sulphur needs to go somewhere else. Which is where the foil comes in, scrunched up to maximise the surface area (you don't want to be having to change the foil if you've got a lot of jewellery to clean because the water is hot). The sulphur bonds with the aluminium, creating a layer of aluminium sulphide and then, because it needs to be a stable compound, which it isn't just yet, there's a further reaction with the water, creating aluminium hydroxide and releasing a small amount of sulphur dioxide. So there might be a slight whiff of farts about this. You're also creating a tiny electrical current in the process, not enough to notice, but it's interesting (to me, at least).

iammumtoone

Thanks all especially jojo for the detailed explination. I am going to find some suitable silver to try this out with.

jojo will it work with warm (not boiling water) if left longer I am scared of putting my jewellery in boling water!

LameWolf

Jojo many thanks for the easy-to-understand explanation of the science behind it; once my current canine guest has gone home, I shall give it a try with some of my "everyday" silver jewellery without stones; I have quite a lot of this (silver being my metal of choice) and being able to clean it all in one hit will be great.

I have to wait for Fudge to go home, because the Pyrex dish I have in mind to use is currently deployed as his water bowl, as his Mum forgot to pack his bowls in his luggage.

theoretica

You can get anti tarnish paper and bags which help with storage of silver.