5 Easy Ways to Clean Silver and Silver Plate

Now that we’re close to Christmas, this is the ideal time to clean your silver. Sprinkle a few special serving pieces into your tablescapes for a touch of glamour and sparkle over the holiday season!

But don’t wait until the very last minute to clean your silver. If you have silver plate items vs. sterling silver, it can be a time consuming chore. Not something to do when you have a dozen other things on the go to get done :).

Watch this Video!

Watch this video to see four of the five methods we tried!

You may have a few questions about why it tarnishes and what your pieces may actually be worth. If so, and you're curious to know about how to find out the value of your silver pieces, head to our blog (click below this post where you see our logo).

How to Tell if it’s Silver or Silver Plate

Before determining the best way to clean silver, you first have to understand what you’re dealing with! Is it sterling silver or silver plated? And something else you might not even consider: is there lacquer over the silver to keep it looking shiny?

A telltale giveaway that silver is plated is if the piece looks like an oil slick (as you see with the tray at the beginning of this post). You can see a rainbow of colours in that piece. But flip the piece over to look for markings to see what they reveal too.

‘E.P. copper’ means that the piece is silver electroplated over copper as the base metal. This particular stamp, Monarch Plate Brand, actually has ‘plate’ in the name. Thanks Captain Obvious!

Flaking

Another dead giveaway is if it looks like pieces are actually flaking off, exposing the base metal underneath. The piece below is an example of that – in a way.

At first, I really didn’t know why this lid looked golden in colour instead of silver (like the rest of the set) and why only a small portion was blackened. Tarnish, if anything, is pretty consistent over all surfaces exposed to air – not isolated in an ‘island’ like above.

In comparison with the rest of the silver pieces in this set, the lid practically looks new – save for a few black spots.

As it turns out, the lid has a lacquer finish over a silver plate base which is tinted yellow to mimic gold plate. That big black mark on the right side two pics above is not the base metal. It’s where the lacquer flaked off, exposing the silver underneath to air and tarnishing it!

Since I’m learning as I go, I’m showing you in the video (and below) what happens when you try to use a silver cleaner over a lacquer finish. After using a silver wipe, it’s no longer shiny. You’ll end up with an ugly milky residue that does not buff off.

You might think this piece is ruined and beyond saving now. But I never give up because there’s nothing to lose at this point.

So into the ultrasonic cleaner it goes. We put the lid into a Ziploc bag filled with a cleaning solution and water (be sure the piece is fully submerged in the liquid). Five minutes later, the lacquer is loose and we’re able to wash right off. Yay, it worked!

As an aside, lacquer thinner would probably also do the job. However, the best thing about the ultrasonic cleaner is that there’s no need for harsh chemicals. I personally think not having to scrub a soft metal like silver is the better way to go if you want to try to save a silver piece that has chipping lacquer.

What’s still clinging to the silver can simply be rinsed away.

Although the lacquer had worn away only where it was tarnished, we managed to give the lid new life again be removing it completely. Gone is the golden hue, but in its place is perfectly beautiful silver again; it was just waiting to be exposed!

Dry any water drops immediately with a soft cloth; water is not a friend to silver. You'll see the full reveal below when the rest of the set is cleaned.

By the way, ultrasonic cleaners are not meant for tarnish removal, just cleaning (and removing lacquer!).

So now let’s take a deeper dive! Besides the ultrasonic cleaner, we tried four other methods to clean our silver pieces:

Wipes

These are convenient wet cloths that are easy to use! These are high on my list of favourite silver cleaners.

I love them because, there’s no harsh smell and the liquid on the wipes really gets into all the nooks and crannies. Also, since the cleaner is throughout the entire wipe, you can clean two surfaces at once – right around edges – saving time.

My best tip for using these wipes is to cut only what you need. You don’t have to pull out the whole wipe just because they pre-portion them; it will just dry and go to waste.

Here’s two identical silver plate clam shells I tried the wipes on. Only one was in great condition.

After applying the wipe all over, the directions say to rinse clean with water. Make sure to dry the water immediately with a soft cloth. Silver is a soft metal so never use anything rough to dry or buff – it scratches easily.

Look how pretty ‘the good one’ is now! How fancy! I feel like I’m living in Downton Abbey – except without the butler and cleaning staff. They would really come in handy to clean this stuff, wouldn’t they?! You'll find more pics of the inside of this one on the blog.

Moving on, here’s part of the set that goes with the lid we resurrected. Where my finger is pointing is an area I cleaned with the wipe and it’s sparkling with hardly any effort!

Underneath though, looks like an oil slick. But it does the job well and surprisingly fast and easy! The wipes do an awesome job of removing tarnish so I give them two thumbs up!

Because I much prefer them over the next item on my silver cleaning list, I wish I had started with the wipes to begin with!

Here’s how this set looks now. The lid we managed to save goes over a glass dish in the middle (head to our blog to see more pics of this piece).

I’m so happy we were able to save the lid and keep the integrity of the set! What would you serve in a silver set like this?

Onto the next silver polishing method!

Silvo

Silvo comes in a tiny 4 oz. bottle and is a thick, almost paste like, consistency. It was recommended to me so is the first thing we bought to try. I tried it on this cream and sugar set.

Use a soft cloth – like this t-shirt fabric to apply it and rub away. And keep applying. And keep rubbing. You get the idea!

It doesn’t work as well as the wipes to get into the crevices on the inside of the bowls, no matter how hard I scrub!

I have to break out the Q-tips to swirl into those circles to get them clean. Tedious work! You just have to put on music you enjoy and while away the hours.

I end up with just as much black tarnish on my hands as on the fabric and Q-tips! Silver polish is VERY messy so this is something you might want to wear gloves to do.

What seems like an eternity later, this is how it looks. Unfortunately the silver plate on the inside is sparse and the copper is showing through, but that doesn’t bother me in the least. I actually love the warm contrast of the copper and prefer it this way!

Using the tray you see with them above as one example, let’s move onto the next method.

Calgon Soak

Instead of chemical/polishes + abrasion to clean your silver, a Calgon bath is a gentler method. All you need is Calgon, salt, aluminum foil and hot water to make a quick and easy silver cleaner.

These ingredients cause a chemical reaction – especially good on sterling. This method is also a much faster way to clean silver than wipes or polishing liquid. However, it really works best on sterling silver. So if you have something like a sterling cutlery set, you can have it sparkling again in mere minutes!

You can see how black the silver-plate tray is to start (below right)!

First, line a tray with aluminum foil – shiny side up. Then sprinkle equal parts of Calgon and salt into the tray. I hear that baking soda and salt will work too, so if you can’t find Calgon, that’s another option you can try.

Pour in very hot water to dissolve. Then add your silver, ensuring it’s totally submerged below the water and touching the foil.

The real silver knife shines up in seconds.

But the tray still needs substantial work. Flip it onto the other side so all surfaces can be in contact with the foil.

There’s a chemical reaction that attracts the tarnish from the silver items to the aluminum foil. When you see it for yourself in action, especially on sterling silver, it’s like magic!

Afterwards, here’s the foil. The dull centre section, once under water and in contact with the silver, is now sporting the tarnish. Pretty cool, eh?

Although this method does lift some of the tarnish from the silver plate tray, it doesn’t do the whole job. After drying it, there’s still plenty to clean after it’s ‘bath’. But it’s definitely much better than the ‘before’ – which practically looked like coal!

After using the Silvo polish, I actually went over this again to get the remainder of the tarnish in the etchings.

And this is how it looks now!

So my verdict on using Calgon in a water bath? I think it’s the only way to go if you have sterling silver pieces like the cheese knife below. It’s minutes of work vs. hours of polishing! A no brainer.

However for silver plate, like the tray, I would say use this method with caution. Although Calgon supposedly removes the tarnish from oxidized silver without removing any of the underlying metal I still worry about the thin coat of silver plate. While it did lift a lot of the tarnish, I still wonder if multiple uses of this silver cleaning method might also eventually lift the silver plate itself.

Last, but not least is using a silver polishing cloth.

Since the little knife that goes with this set is sterling, I was confident in using the Calgon to shine it up again. However, not all silver should be polished. The cheseboard surround below is silver plated and I always remember this piece having patina. There’s no way I’d want to change it by shining everything up.

This is where a cleaning cloth works brilliantly.

You can wrap it around a finger (like I’m doing on this brass hardware) and target a particular spot.

For this cheese platter, I just hit the high spots of the detail. I also shined up the flat surfaces of the design around the outer rim to add some sparkle.

Since the cloth is dry, there’s no accidental seepage onto areas you don’t want to remove patina from.

If you compare the before and after, the difference may seem subtle, but is actually quite impactful! I love the way it looks now with a gentle cleaning!

That wraps up the four different methods on how to clean silver (5 if you include the ultrasonic cleaner).

When you’re not using your silver, storing it in plastic – away from air – helps preserve its sparkle and all the hard work you spent cleaning. But then, if you do that, you can’t see or enjoy it on a daily basis. So perhaps a compromise is best: display a few pieces and bring some out on special occasions.

If you have treasured silver pieces too, I hope this post helps you clean and enjoy them for many years to come! These tips are particularly handy around the holidays when we tend to use our silver pieces more :).

'Tis the Season to Crochet for a Cure

Speaking of the holidays, if you have someone on your Christmas list who loves to crochet (or that person is you), you're in luck because we just opened up a new pattern shop and we’re donating 100% of our proceeds to Alzheimer’s.

You’ll find patterns, like our signature Kayla Pillow, Air Planter Pods and Tooth Fairy Pillow (shown below), available to purchase as a donation to our Alzheimer’s fundraiser.

Come visit us to gift a pattern (any time of year); with 100% going to charity, it’s a win-win!

We've also written two Crochet for a Cure eBooks with proceeds going to Alzheimer's that are perfect for gift giving for the holidays. You'll find both eBooks here (in some markets they're available in hard copy format too)!

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