Cleaning Tips
Personally, when I need jewelry to look shiny and new before a show or
gallery viewing, I use plain, good old-fashioned ketchup on the majority of
my pieces.
Because ketchup has a high acid level, it removes the patina caused by the
metal oxidization process. Ketchup works extremely well on copper, brass
and sterling silver.
Another good substance is regular, non-whitening toothpaste. The abrasive
quality of the toothpaste works wonders on bronze in particular. The only
reason I tell people NOT to use toothpaste, is because the abrasiveness of it
can take the colour out of some glass beads.
A third option, which I'm sure many have heard of, is the use of an old,
cheap lipstick on sterling jewelry to make it shine. The problems is that the
jewelry then needs to be washed thoroughly in warm water to remove the
lipstick from all of the crevices found in jewelry.
Below is an example of a sterling silver necklace before (on the left) and after
(on the right) cleaned in ketchup.
gallery viewing, I use plain, good old-fashioned ketchup on the majority of
my pieces.
Because ketchup has a high acid level, it removes the patina caused by the
metal oxidization process. Ketchup works extremely well on copper, brass
and sterling silver.
Another good substance is regular, non-whitening toothpaste. The abrasive
quality of the toothpaste works wonders on bronze in particular. The only
reason I tell people NOT to use toothpaste, is because the abrasiveness of it
can take the colour out of some glass beads.
A third option, which I'm sure many have heard of, is the use of an old,
cheap lipstick on sterling jewelry to make it shine. The problems is that the
jewelry then needs to be washed thoroughly in warm water to remove the
lipstick from all of the crevices found in jewelry.
Below is an example of a sterling silver necklace before (on the left) and after
(on the right) cleaned in ketchup.
Another example of using ketchup to clean jewelry; this time on a copper
and glass necklace.
and glass necklace.
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