Cleaning Jewelry

After you have been selling jewelry for awhile you get the question: "How do I clean it?"

I specifically received the question from someone who purchased a Lexie's choker. There are several Bali silver spacers between the Swarovski pearls. Cleaning silver has always been easy for me if the piece is all silver. I just tumble the piece. It comes out nice and bright and shiny. (By the way, since I own a tumbler, if you live near by, I'll be happy to tumble your silver.)

Many people use the dip type of cleaner. That is sometimes the best but doesn't give a shine and does remove some of the silver in doing its job. But what do you do when you have a mixture of silver and say pearls as in Lexie's choker?

Well, I was visiting Miachelle's Blog yesterday and she posed the question of using Tabasco or toothpaste to clean jewelry. Her conclusion was that the Tabasco didn't do much but that toothpaste did clean well. I'm going to try it on the Bali spacers. Her recommendation was to use a gentle, nonabrasive toothpaste and use your fingers rather than a brush. That way, the pearls or other beads will not be harmed.

You can read the whole post at: http://inkslinginwoman.blogspot.com/ (Her blog is on my Blog list on the right hand column of this page)

Let me know if you have used toothpaste or now will try it.

B