There was a time when every well-to-do woman had an entire chest full of silver pieces. From teapots to trays and every kind of flatware piece you could dream of.
Have you ever looked at all the pieces of an old fashioned set of sterling silverware?
There are butter, fish, dinner and luncheon knives, luncheon and shellfish forks. The list goes on ad nauseum. Talk about marketing. Back then, the silver makers managed to convince all these women they couldn’t live without a special spoon just for nuts.
Set of silver is not something every woman has these days…it’s a lot of trouble because they tarnish so easily and we really don’t use it all that often anyway. Over Christmas, I went to a dinner party at the home of a friend who has an extensive collection of silver pieces. She displays them all the time, but this night, had polished them all up, used them as centerpieces full of beautiful white tulips on her tables and it was the most spectacular thing I’d ever seen!
Now, she’s throwing a wedding and called in everyone she knows to loan her their silver pieces.
Uh-Oh.
The few things that haven’t seen the light of day in many moons. So I knew they would all be the color of the deep, dark sky and it would take forever to clean the tarnish off of them. But before I hauled out the silver polish and dirtied every cloth in the house I decided to try “the magic trick.”
Do you know it?
It really seems to be magic…the tarnish disappears right before your eyes!
Here’s the recipe:
Boiling water
Aluminum foil
Baking soda
Get a container large enough to hold whatever you’re trying to clean…small bowls for jewelry, large tubs for candlesticks, etc.
The big stuff is harder because of all the boiling water you need, but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Line the container with aluminum foil, shiny side UP. Place the tarnished silver article on the foil. Pour the boiling water over until it’s covered and sprinkle quite a bit of baking soda into the water. You can carefully stir it until dissolved. It will bubble and foam and begin to smell a little like rotten eggs.
What’s happening is called “ion exchange”. I’m not a chemist, but apparently the baking soda and aluminum react and cause the sulfur in the tarnish to be attracted to the foil (hence the eggy smell).
You’ll see the foil begin to turn black and the silver begin to turn…well, silver!
The more heavily tarnished, the longer you may have to leave the item, even overnight. And you may need to change out the foil and water. I did.
Most items may still need a light once over with the polish and a buff, but not much…just to give them a little shine.
NOTE: If you have carved pieces or antique pieces, you may want to leave some of the black in the edges for definition, so either just use silver polish or do the magic trick briefly to make them easier to clean. If it’s something you know has glue, the boiling water may melt the glue so don’t try it. This works on sterling and silver plate as well.
The experts also say the more you use your silver, the less tarnish to contend with, which makes sense!
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