Silver is such an attractive metal, but unfortunately, without proper care, it can easily become tarnished, leaving it in a less than optimum state.
There are several ways to clean silver with items that are easy to come by, so for anyone who wants to know, we’ve had a look online to see what other people have been using – and as a result, here are our favorite 27 DIY silver cleaner recipes you might like to try at home.
1. Homemade Frugal Silver Cleaner – Thespruce.com
Cleaning silver doesn’t require any harsh chemical products, and it doesn’t need to be hard work either – because there’s an easy way to do using just a few things you’re almost sure to have in your home already. It doesn’t even take a long time to do, and if you want to find out more, this post has all the details.
2. Clean Silver, Removing Tarnish Instantly without Polishing or Harsh Chemicals
The method of cleaning silver that this tutorial demonstrates is quite similar to the one in #1, but if you’d like to see a video of the technique in action, this is a video that worth watching. As you see at the beginning, the spoon on the left is in desperate need of a clean – and the one on the right shows just how effective this trick can be!
3. Homemade Silver Cleaner – How to Polish Silver without Harsh Chemicals
As this blog post tells us, this popular method for cleaning silver relies on creating an electromagnetic reaction that is incredibly effective for cleaning blackened silver. It doesn’t require any specialist products, so it is extremely inexpensive, and it can rescue even silver pieces that you may have given up hope of ever getting clean again. Check it out to see how it works.
4. How To Clean Silver Jewelry Fast!
This video is another one demonstrating a similar method to the ones we’ve already seen using baking soda and aluminum foil. Here, this YouTuber demonstrates how she uses it on silver jewelry rather than cutlery, but it works just as well, providing a cheap, fast method for returning your silver items to their former glory.
5. DIY Jewelry Cleaner – Sparkling Silver Without Scrubbing!
Here’s a slightly different version of the silver cleaning technique that many bloggers have been trying because in this one, we’re told to try it with vinegar instead of baking soda. It’s super-easy to do and requires almost no effort, so if you’re interested in trying, give this post a read to find out how to do it.
6. What Happens to Silver in Vinegar?
If you’re worried about cleaning valuable silver items with vinegar, this is a video you should watch before trying. In it, this YouTuber tries immersing some old silver coins in vinegar as an experiment to find out what happens, and the result is surprising. He also tries out two other methods, and there is a clear winner – give his video a watch if you want to find out which one worked best.
7. How to Clean Silver and Save It from Tarnish Using Simple Pantry Ingredients
In this blog post, you’ll learn about how to take care of routine silver maintenance using nothing more than soapy water as well as using other techniques for deeper cleaning. As with all the best methods, it doesn’t require the use of harsh chemicals or expensive cleaning products, making this blog a useful read if you want to learn about simple techniques for cleaning silver that really work.
8. How to Clean Silver Items at Home
If you’re worried about using baking soda to clean your silver, this is a video that should be of interest since it shows you what appears to be a highly effective alternative method that produces spectacular results. Sure, this technique requires a little more work, but it’s a great way to restore dirty or oxidized silver. The video isn’t in English, but it has subtitles, so bear with it because this is a technique that’s worth learning about.
9. DIY Silver Polish & Video – Martha Stewart
Nowadays, more and more people are looking for environmentally friendly ways to clean things, and if you want to learn about an ecological way to take care of silver, this is the blog post for you. It teaches you about two different methods, depending on how tarnished your silver is, allowing you to keep your silver looking great without harming the planet.
10. How to Clean Silver the Easy Way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RngNlLjKerg
To get your silver clean quickly, all you really need is some aluminum foil, some baking soda, some boiling water and a container to put them all in. Some methods also add salt, but this YouTuber doesn’t even bother with that. So if you want to see the simplest way to restore blackened silver items, this is a video that should be of interest.
11. How to Clean Silver – Best DIY Ways to Polish Silver & Remove Tarnish
Sometimes there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to problems, and this is true when it comes to cleaning silver too. Different methods all have their advantages and disadvantages, so it’s best to know about a few options to allow you to choose the most appropriate one to use. That’s what this post gives you since it contains several different techniques, so you can pick the most suitable one for the silver items you need to clean and their level of dirtiness.
12. 3 Make-Your-Own Silver Cleaner & Polish Recipes – Tipsbulletin.com
Here’s a blog post that’s worth a read since it teaches you three different techniques for cleaning tarnished or dirty silver. The first idea is for a homemade cleaning solution that uses a couple of items you probably already have in your home, most notably a can of soda. After this, it teaches you about a version of the popular electrochemical method, and it then finishes by teaching you how to make a silver polish based on simple household ingredients. Check it out for more info!
13. How to Clean Your Stirling Silver Jewelry at home
This blogger teaches us about her take on the baking soda and aluminum foil method of cleaning silver. As she tells us, her silver jewelry has been allowed to become quite black with tarnish, and in her video, she tries an experiment to see if she can get everything clean again. Give it a watch to see if she succeeded.
14. How to Clean Silver Naturally: Easy & Fast! – On Sutton Place
The secret ingredient in this silver cleaning recipe is kosher salt, which supposedly makes the potion even more potent. We’re not sure if it really helps, but the “before” and “after” photos in this blog are evidence that it does, and if you’d like to try, this post will teach you how.
15. The Easiest Way to Shine Silver!
In this video, you get to watch as this YouTuber demonstrates how to clean tarnished silver quickly and easily using the toothpaste method. It requires a bit more work than using baking soda and aluminum foil, but it’s gentler on your jewelry, making this a good technique to try if you don’t want to damage your necklaces, bracelets or earrings.
16. The Best-Kept Silver Cleaning Secret Ever! – Clean My Space
If, like this blogger, you have a pile of silver jewelry that has become blackened and tarnished through neglect, you’ll want to know how to get it all clean again. In that case, this is a blog post you should find interesting since it teaches you a quick and easy way to do just that. It’s effortless too – give it a read to find out how she does it!
17. Frugal Tip – Homemade Silver Polish
As you can probably guess from the name of this channel, this YouTuber specializes in coming up with ways to save money about the house. In this video, she teaches you a great inexpensive way to clean silver – and one that also works just as well for copper – so if you want to avoid buying expensive cleaning products, this video is for you.
18. How to Clean Silver Jewelry at Home with 7 Simple Steps
In this blog post, we read that silver tarnishing is caused by a chemical reaction of the metal with sulfur, which creates silver sulfide and darkens the surface. It’s a natural reaction – but reversing it is so easy that, in the words of this blogger, it will “blow your mind”. Sound intriguing? Then give the blog a read to find out more!
19. The Easy Way to Clean Silver Jewelry
This is another version of the baking soda and aluminum foil silver cleaning method. However, this YouTuber also gives us a few other useful tips like advising you to wear gloves as well as telling us about how to get the best results when polishing the silver after cleaning it. That makes it worth watching even if you already know the basics of the method, so have a watch and see if you can learn anything new.
20. DIY Jewelry Cleaner – Baking Soda, Salt
The technique using baking soda is clearly very effective since there are versions of it all over the internet – and here’s one more. However, it’s always best to check out a couple to see which version is best, so this is another tutorial you might like to read.
21. How to Clean Silver Jewelry at Home Easily
In this video, we learn about a cleaning method using baking soda and vinegar. Having watched the video in #6, you might be hesitant to use vinegar to clean your silver, but this tutorial suggests vinegar may have its merits after all. Should you try it? We’ll let you watch the video and make up your mind for yourself!
22. Best DIY Silver Cleaner: How to Clean Tarnished Silver the Easy Way
The cleaning method this post teaches you about “works like magic” according to this blogger. This version uses cleaning soda (as opposed to baking soda, unlike many of the others) – there are plenty of photos on the blog showing how effective the idea is, so perhaps it’s another one that’s worth trying.
23. How To Wash Real Sterling Silver Necklace!
Here’s another tutorial demonstrating how to wash sterling silver with toothpaste. This is a technique we never would have thought of ourselves, but it seems to work extremely well – as this video proves.
24. The Best Way to Clean & Polish Silver – Baking Soda and Aluminum Foil Method
There are quite a few silver-cleaning techniques doing the rounds on the internet, so this blogger decided to test them to see which was best. As a result, she recommends four techniques that really work – so head over to her blog to find out which they were.
25. The Coco-Cola Test – Cleaning Silver
Whatever you think of the taste of Coca-Cola, it has many magical properties beyond simply quenching your thirst. One of them would appear to be the ability to clean silver, something this YouTuber puts to the test. How do you think the silver looked after an hour submerged in Coke? For the answer, check out this video and see.
26. How to Clean a Silver Plate at Home in 6 Steps – PureWow
In this blog, you’ll learn about several different ways of cleaning silver, some of them requiring more effort than others. You’ll probably be able to guess which the easiest one is, but for details on that and more, we’ll let you read the blog for more info.
27. How To Polish a Silver Ring
This video is a little different from most of the others we’ve seen because in it, this professional silversmith shows us how he polishes silver rings. It’s not a technique you can use to un-tarnish blackened silver, but it will help you keep your rings in perfect condition, so if that sounds like useful info, this video is a recommended watch.
Lots of highly effective ways to keep silver looking great
As you can see, there are quite a few home recipes that will help you keep your silver jewelry, cutlery and other items in perfect condition – or return them to their former glory if they start looking worse for wear.
We’ve enjoyed collecting these plans for you, so we hope you’ve enjoyed reading and watching them too – and above all, we hope we’ve helped you find some useful techniques for cleaning any silver items you have at home.
