So I was doing some cleaning and organizing of my dresser on Friday night (nesting? am I nesting? I hope so!). As I was cleaning and organizing my jewelry, I noticed that I have SO many pieces of older (and some, quite honestly NOT that old) silver jewelry that are just SUPER tarnished.

I don’t know if it’s my skin’s chemistry with silver or what, but it seems like any piece of silver jewelry I get turns tarnished so quickly. You know what I’m talking about… like brown or dark or black. Especially necklace chains. Gross.

Anyway, I have tried and tried and tried to use silver polishing cloths, jewelry cleaner, etc… but I could only kind of take care of the tarnish… and in the end, the jewelry still looked terrible.

Well, I did some creative Googling and tried a few different methods and ingredients and ladies and gents, I think I have finally found a way to ACTUALLY how to clean my silver jewelry. And for cheap. And it’s easy. And you don’t have to go out any buy anything!

So, for you ladies (and gents) that have some pieces of silver jewelry laying around that you’ve been meaning to clean… here’s what you need to do:

Step One: Get Out Your Silver Jewelry

Here is my jewelry that I was polishing. I know it is pretty tough to see the detail (I tried my darndest to get a good picture) – but this is my jewelry BEFORE. If you look ESPECIALLY on the necklace chains on the right, they’re just dark and dull.

Step Two: Get Out Your Silver Polishing Ingredients

Here’s what you need for how to clean your silver jewelry:

• Baking Soda
• Salt
• Hot Water (I just put some water in a bowl and heated it in the microwave for a few minutes)
• A bowl / dish / tray
• Aluminum Foil
• Silver / jewelry polishing cloth (a soft towel will suffice if you don’t have one)

Step Three: Prep Your Jewelry

Now, line the bowl / dish / tray (whatever you chose) with the aluminum foil and then evenly space and lay out your jewelry.

I know this picture is kinda dark and tough to see, but you can really see how dark and tarnished some of my jewelry is… especially those circle Tiffany & Co. earrings.

Step Four: Clean!

Now, pour the hot water into the tray / bowl / dish so that it completely covers your jewelry. Then, add as much baking soda as you need to be able to completely cover the jewelry as well. THEN, sprinkle salt all over the jewelry.

Step Five: Wait. Let the jewelry sit for AT LEAST FOUR HOURS.

I actually let mine sit in there for almost six hours. This is one of those things you could do before bed, or maybe before you leave for work, or something. The longer you let it sit, the better… but I guess I would say ideal time frame would be 4-6 hours.

Step Six: Clean and dry!

Remove your jewelry one piece at a time from the dish. Rinse off and dry off each piece. THEN, with a silver polishing cloth, polish that last bit of tarnish off. Now, if you have some REALLY REALLY tarnished pieces, you may need to do this entire process a few times.

For the majority of my jewelry, I was able to get it all SUPER clean and sparkly. However, those silver Tiffany & Co. earrings are SO tarnished, I am going to have to do it a few more times, but there was a HUGE HUGE HUGE improvement.

Here’s my jewelry after:

More after… it’s hard to REALLY see how shiny / clean / sparkly they are… but it’s a HUGE improvement.

A little better example of the before and after… sort of.

I feel like you can see the difference in this before and after below. The jewelry on the left is just dull and dark and on the right it’s just bright and shiny!

So yeah, huge difference. This was SO easy (and cheap to do!) And honestly it worked SO MUCH BETTER than ANY jewelry cleaner I’ve ever bought.

What about you? Have you tried this before? Are you going to give this a shot?

Happy Funday Monday! Each week, Carly & I select a few of our favorite posts from the Monday before to feature. It’s a great way to put the spotlight on a few of y’all each week! Please be sure to link up an ACTUAL post, not just a link to your main page.