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Here's an article which you might be interested to read on Cleaning Your Silver and another one on Keeping Silver From Tarnishing.
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I almost forgotten about these. For those who are unclear of what this is, allow me to explain.
Silver polishing cloth is a piece of cotton cloth impregnated with silver polish and anti-tarnish agent to clean tarnish off silver and protect against tarnishing. To me, it’s good enough to clean off tarnish. The cloth remains effective as long as they are not washed. If you wash them, you wash away the chemicals impregnated into the cloth to clean the tarnish as well.
There is also other silver cleaning agent in liquid form. Basically, what you do with the liquid is to soak them in the liquid to clean the tarnish. Both works the same but probably just a matter of preference and practicality.
To me, rubbing with a cloth is much faster and more convenient that soaking them in liquid. But it might be more difficult to rub a chain or creaks of those components with intricate carvings and so on, in which case, it might be more practical to clean using the liquid form, if you are very particular. But if you are not fussy and don’t mind the extra work, I think silver polishing cloth work just as fine.
One of my common practices when using the wires is to give them a good wipe prior to use. It is also a way of straightening the wires. If you’ve seen any wire wrapping videos, one common thing shown in the video prior to any work done is how the wires are straighten with pulling the wires straight with hand. I just did mine with the silver polishing cloth instead of bare hands.
This is not proven or anything but just a practise I picked up because the wires are after all silver plated and I just thought that wiping it with the chemical impregnated cloth might help protect the wires a bit. Well, this is just my own idea, really
There is a story behind the silver polishing cloth actually.
When I first started selling the jewelleries that I make, one of the question that I got a lot was whether they tarnish. I was sort of in a catch-22 situation whenever this question was posed to me. I was afraid that if I said that it would, that I won’t be able to sell anything but yet on the other hand, I don’t want to lie to my customers. So, reluctantly, I would tell them that they would. Unsurprisingly, I did loose out on some sales.
I was pretty upset about this. Frankly speaking, how can they not tarnish at all? Even sterling 925 silver tarnish after some time and my jewelleries are not expected to tarnish? Seriously, are you kidding me?
Because it was something that was bugging me so much, I just couldn’t let it rest just like that. I made researched over the internet, asked in forum and I finally could come to a resolution.
No, I did not find any solution to stop or prevent the tarnishing process. It’s a fact of life that they WILL eventually tarnish. Like I said before, even sterling 925 silver and even white gold tarnished after some amount of use. Yes, there are no question that there are some non precious metal like surgical steel, stainless steel and what not that don’t tarnish but you should also realize that the silver colour on those metals are very much different from sterling silver.
What I realize later on is that to make your customer understands this just as how I am understanding it.
Yes, it will tarnish BUT how long it will last you depends on a few factors.
- Treatment
If you are going to wear that piece of jewellery 24/7, while you are bathing, sleeping and exercising and not expect them to tarnish, seriously? I’m really at a loss for words. Oil, sweat and dirt will all hasten tarnishing. That is why the wearer is advised to apply lotion, perfume and so on prior to putting on the jewellery and take them off first before cleaning up. In other words, jewellery should be the last to put on but the first to take off. And also, due to the fragile nature of handmade jewellery, wearer is also advised to treat them gently. How and where you store the jewellery also matters because dust is also another factor that hastens tarnishing. - Quality
The quality of the components used is also a factor. This, I think, is self explanatory. Better quality components will no doubt not tarnish as fast as the lower quality ones. Honestly, this itself is no guarantee as sometimes the maker would not even have known about it until the customers complain. All I can say is that this is sometimes, something we can only learn through experience, after using them; talking from a maker and buyer point of you. If you are happy with the components you bought, there will be repeat order. If you are unhappy with the quality, you stop purchasing from them but I do think that in such circumstances, we sometimes need to give the reseller the benefit of doubt because they sometimes also only learned about the quality of the components, or lack-of thereof, after feedbacks from customers. - Weather
A hot, humid climate encourages faster tarnishing as well and so is being near to the oceans will equally makes jewelry tarnish faster. - Body chemistry
This is something I learned from my Sa Kor when I told her about my dilemma with the tarnish problem. I was from her that I learn that some bodies tarnish metal faster than others. Metals can react differently on different persons. Sometimes this is because of a person's body chemistry, other times it might be because of what type of soap or lotion or perfume a person might use. That was the very first time I was hearing about it but according to her, that seemed to be the common sentiment accepted by the people there and so people over there, as in the UK, are more forgiving(?) and silver polishing cloth is therefore a given. - Maintenance
That was how I learned about the silver polishing cloth. I don’t really understand what the commotion should be when the tarnish can be cleaned. That is the whole idea of silver polishing cloth. You rub your jewellery with the cloth to remove the tarnish and also to slow down future tarnishing. It’s the idea of upkeep and maintenance. It’s like doing facial? Compare someone who goes for facial once a month to someone who only goes for facial once in 6 months, who do you think will have a better skin?
It’s also sometimes an issue with knowledge and education. As much as I’ve come across customers who question me on tarnish, I’ve also got customers asking me about how to care for their jewelleries to maintain their sparkle. They’ve also heard vaguely about some cloth or liquid to clean and asked me for further details. That is what I call smart consumer.
So, this is my conclusion; how quickly or badly they will tarnish depends on how much you wear them, how you wear them and where you wear them. The concept is simple. If you want something to last longer, you just need to as far as possible maintain its condition as you first received it.
If you hated all the maintenance work that inevitably comes with sterling 925 silver, argentium sterling silver might just be what you need. Argentium sterling silver, I heard, is highly tarnish resistant.
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