Life Hack: What goes on your chips and cleans your jewellery?

This storecupboard ingredient could be the key to keeping your jewels sparkling

Life Hack: Use a microfibre cloth to regularly polish your jewellery too to keep them fingerprint-free and to ensure any oil transferred onto it from your skin does not build up over time.

It’s very likely that there’s some jewellery in need of love in your possession. After almost two years without events and social occasions, you might open your jewellery box and find some tarnished necklaces, bracelets and rings. However, you might not need to bring them to a jeweller for some TLC: everything you need to restore them is sitting in your kitchen. And yes, you know the multitasker sodium bicarbonate is involved.

One person on TikTok has shared her go-to technique to restore her silver. User @michellemorera_ lines a bowl with tin foil and pours three cups of boiling water into it. She then adds a tablespoon of sodium bicarbonate followed by a tablespoon of salt. She then drops her Pandora bracelet into the bowl to soak. After leaving it for 10 minutes she takes the bracelet from the bowl and wipes it with a cloth. She also suggests using a toothbrush to remove excess staining. Her bracelet is left sparkling like new after the technique.

Want a more colourful option? Cover your silver jewellery in ketchup for five to 10 minutes, remove it and scrub with a toothbrush befor rinsing away the remaining residue with warm water. Silver polish can work like a charm on silver jewellery too to maintain its shine, but don’t use the polish on other metals, like gold.

If you want to maintain the shine of your gold jewellery you should clean them regularly to avoid any discolouration. Generally a bowl of warm, soapy water will do the trick. The soap can be something like washing up liquid or regular hand soap. Use a soft toothbrush to gently scrub the item. 

However, you should modify this technique if you’re cleaning anything containing an emerald. Instead, scrubbing with a toothbrush and warm water only is enough. Rinse the jewellery and pay it dry with a microfibre cloth. This method is recommended for pre-oxidised jewellery, such as Pandora bracelets.

Use a microfibre cloth to regularly polish your jewellery too to keep them fingerprint-free and to ensure any oil transferred onto it from your skin does not build up over time. A silver or gold polishing cloth is also a useful item to own if you want to treat your jewellery regularly.

Perhaps more important than knowing how to clean your jewellery is knowing what to keep away from it. Always remove rings and bracelets when using cleaning products like bleach and other household chemicals. Also, did you know your daily spray of perfume could damage your jewellery? Make sure you spritz yourself before you put on your rings, necklaces and bracelets.

Finally, a yearly professional clean is recommended to maintain jewellery and should be considered if the item in question is of high monetary or sentimental value. Your jeweller can advise you on how often they should be cleaned.