Designer Jewelry Gems

It is only normal for silver earrings to tarnish with time. They become black and loose their luster, this is known as oxidization. It is not a sign of poor quality, silver tarnishes and oxidizes, it must be cleaned to keep it looking good.

It does not matter whether we are cleaning sterling silver or silver plated jewelry, the process is the same. You can find on the market today many products to use in cleaning your jewelry.

Many well known brands of chemical cleaners are available on the market. Most of them will do a more than adequate job of restoring your jewelry to its original luster, but should be restricted to jewelry without stones.

For earrings or jewelry with semi-precious stones, it is best to steer away from harsh chemicals. There are special silver cleaning cloths, sold in many jewelry stores that can clean earrings with stones. You can rub the silver with the cloth to restore its luster.

I do not use such expensive and harsh chemicals. When my silver is oxidized I fall back on my grand-mother’s old tricks. They are cheaper and do wonder for my earrings.

Trick number 1: Lay the earrings on a bath towel. You will need a little toothpaste and a soft toothbrush. Roll a little bit of toothpaste between your fingers and apply it to the silver earrings. Follow this immediately with a gentle scrub with the toothbrush. It is not necessary to scrub hard. Scrub the entire the piece but avoid to scrub the stones. If you rubbed the stones it is not too bad, so do not worry about it. When you are done, rinse your jewelry in warm water. Dry it with the towel and you can again enjoy shiny silver.

Trick number two: Cut a lemon in half and rub your jewelry with one of the pieces. Rinse well with warm water and dry with a clean soft towel or cloth.

The third trick makes use of aluminum foil, that most of us have in the house. You will wrap the earrings in aluminum foil and submerge them in a pan of water to which you added salt. Bring the water to boil and let it boil for about five minutes. Open the foil, rinse the jewelry and your earrings should look like new.

It happens that for excessively tarnished jewelry these methods are not successful. In this case you can use a product that you use in the house for cleaning glass.

You should under no circumstances clean silver in an ultrasonic cleaning device, as this damages it. Silver earrings are beautiful, affordable and easily cleaned. I hope these will help you get more enjoyment from old earrings.