It’s getting to be that time of year again when you are constantly having family and friends over for food and merriment. You pull out “the good china” and your grandmother’s silver to get them prepped and ready for the next 2 months of holidays. You take a closer look at your silver and realize...they are pretty tarnished! There’s no time to sit there scrubbing and polishing, and you’ve been a cleaning-chemical-free zone for a while now. Is there even a way to shine your silver without using some sort of chemical? YES, THERE IS! It takes only a few seconds to see results and there is NO scrubbing involved! It’s true: here is the how-to:
1. Boil Some Water
Gather up all of the silver you want to shine (this also works on silver jewelry, but possibly not on silver plated) and get a pot to boil some water. You’ll want to use a bigger size pot to give the mixture some room to expand and fill halfway with water. Before you boil the water, add a scrunched up ball of aluminum foil.
2. Add Baking Soda
Once the water is boiling, add about a tablespoon of baking soda to the pot. Be careful, as this is where the mixture can start to boil more rapidly and expand! If you make a mess, don’t worry. It’s super easy to clean up once it’s cooled off.
3. Tong Time
This is the part where you need to be very careful so you don’t get burned! You’ll need to get yourself a pair of tongs to make this step easier. Put a couple of pieces of your silver in the tongs and dip them into the silver mixture and leave for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. The length of time may depend on the severity of the tarnish, so I would start with the 30 seconds and then add 30 more seconds if needed.
4. Rinse with Cool Water
Once the time is up, remove the tongs holding your silver from the boiling water and rinse them under cool water. Do not remove the silver from the tongs by hand before cooling them off! After, you can set them on a towel to dry or hand dry them yourself.
5. Enjoy Your Shiny Silver
I feel like this was a necessary instruction step because you will be seriously AMAZED at the results! Your silver is shiny and you barely had to do anything. The hardest part about this step is preventing yourself from going around your home looking for more silver to shine! (Ok, go ahead and do that because I know I did)
How easy was that method to make your silver shine? It took seconds, required ZERO scrubbing, and is chemical-free! Do you have any tips/tricks/methods you use to clean your silver? Let us know in the comments below!
XOXO,
Your Squeaky Green Team