If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet her with, “who could have done this? We have no enemies.”
♥ Phyllis Diller
It started with the sugar spoon at breakfast, I noticed how tarnished it looked. We had company coming to stay with us, and really, all the silverware looked bad . . . it made me remember, just the other day, a girlfriend told me about this method she has of cleaning silver that she says definitely works, and gave me her recipe for it.
I’d heard of doing it like this before; I never really thought it would work, so I never tried it. But all my silver looked so terrible; what did I have to lose? What if it really works? Way better than polishing every piece, one at a time. Which I didn’t have time to do anyway. Then I thought, Maybe the girlfriends would like to see this scientific experiment! So out came the camera and here we are. Let’s see if it works!
I did what my friend suggested: I lined the sink with aluminum foil, the bottom and up on all sides.
Then I poured a half-cup of ordinary table salt and a half-cup of baking soda into the sink; filled it with really hot water, and dropped in the silverware.
You can see, if you look close, that I also dropped my wand in there. Even though the wand is brass and not silver, I thought I’d give it a try. Joe came in, peered into the sink, and said, “what’s that?” ”It’s my wand,” I said. He looked at me, rolled eyes, and said, “Why didn’t you just wave it over the silverware and forget all this?”
So, how did it work? It worked pretty good! I left it in the water for about a half hour. Here are the before and after photos: ”Before” is on the left, and “after” is on the right. There’s definitely a big difference. I think you get more of a polish when you do it by hand; however, for speed-cleaning, and getting so many pieces done at once, this is my new, go-to way to do it.
Then I polished my wand the old-fashioned way.
But here’s the real magic…I went to clean up, and look at this…the tarnish is all over the aluminum foil. Some sort of transference has occurred. Must have been the wand!
♥
For this, I give myself the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval…
Try it!!!!…..You just never know if any of those wives tales work!!!!….Surprise!!!…It did!!!!!!
I know, shocking!!!
Your silverware makes mine look like a walk in the park……….I will try this. And we only use sterling flatware (I don’t own anything else – it is the South afterall and we were raised this way!).
Leaving it in a drawer has never made any sense to me!
I would love to use mine every day just because it feels so good in my hand and I think it makes any meal taste better. To have something so nice sitting in a drawer is a waste.
…can this also be done on bakelite flatware…will it ruin the handles?…made of stainless steel…but has tons of rust!!! bought them for a song fleamarketing
I’ve heard baking soda might work for that, just rub it on, like in a little paste, and see how it goes. The aluminum foil process might be too abrasive, but you could try just one piece if you have enough you wouldn’t mind if you lost one.
My grandma who is 87 and in wonderful health living on her own just down-sized and gave me some beautiful silver and I used it all the time! We have 5 children, 4 girls and one boy. The older three are girls are grown and now have homes of their own, 4th is our 18 yr old son and the baby is 13. We have 3 (going on 4) grandchildren and when my grandma comes for sunday dinner we have 5 generations! I’m so happy you shared your experiment with us as a short cut to polishing when time is of the essence is much appreciated. We try to get together for sunday dinners’ weekly and I LOVE using the silver and the serving utensils are soooo pretty too! We just turned our living room into a dining room for just such dinners’, and added a 10′ farm house table from our favorite furniture maker, Keith’s furniture. The top is old oak barn floor and the legs are huge and turned and distressed black. My son-in-law redid windsors in distressed black to match and we found a 6′ solid oak bench for one side and my gram had some darling black plank bottoms w/ painted design backs that we use for extra seating! All this to say that i’m thankful for the silver polishing tip?!
It sounds wonderful and very familyish!
susan, we just love you! When the new grands arrive the new mommy gets your baby love book. Rarely does a birthday go by without the girls’ receiving another susan branch book to add to their collection. Christmas cards and names tags are made with your stamps, your scrapbooking papers and stickers adorn our scrapbooks, your calendar guides us through the year, your days’ books hold our daily memories and your address book sits on the kitchen counter by the phone:) You’ve been part of our family for many many moons and for that we, as a family, are thankful<3 Can't wait for the new book!!!
That makes me feel wonderful! Thank you for telling me!
Thanks for the great tip. I have a sterling silver and gold charm bracelet, that means the world to me. My jeweler in Newport, R.I., (never met them, but they do great work!) told me never to use the “dip silver cleaner”, because it can actually take the silver off. Also, with a lot of gold on it, I was afraid it would ruin. I just tried your method(I have to admit, I did hold my breath) and I know 2012 is going to be a good year! THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN! By the way, I did wave to you when I was on the Cape last month Susan, I figured my hand would just know the way! Great time, if it were up to me, I would cross the Sagamore Bridge, and never look back. Best in 2012. I would like to share with you and all women, my favorite saying. LIFE ISN’T ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF. LIFE IS ABOUT CREATING YOURSELF.
Catherine
So glad!!! (I held my breath too! Your bracelet!)
We used this method of polishing silver at a country club I waitressed at – it really does work well! I will have to do this for our home silverware – just getting more tarnished sitting in a drawer!
Yes, it works!
Interesting, so can you clean silver jewelry this way? Any tips??
I don’t know! I would imagine so . . . but I’d try it on something not too valuable at first . . . I don’t think I’d want to put anything with stones in it.
Thank you! I’ll let you know!
Susan, I use aluminum foil pans and fill them with very warm water. I pour salt in like you do, but instead of the baking soda, I use a capful of Woolite. It works beautifully! I love cleaning my silver!