Not a cooking post- How to Clean Silver (Easily)

I had seen things on Pinterest a few times, about polishing silver by soaking it in hot salt-water with aluminum foil, and mentioned to my husband that I wanted to try it, because all of my silver pieces were looking REALLY bad.

Observe:

The pitcher before--notice the "bubbly" marks that I have never been able to remove when I polished this.

A candlestick before

So, my husband didn't think that salt would work very well, and he found this article, so I decided to try that.

First, I filled my plastic basin with water, and dumped the water into my stock-pot to boil.  (That way I didn't heat more water than would fit.)  It was about 6 quarts, so I measured out 1 1/2 cups of baking soda (1 cup per gallon of water).

In the mean time, I put a sheet of aluminum foil in the bottom of the plastic basin, and set the two candlesticks on the foil.

When the water came to a boil, I set the stock-pot in the sink and added the baking soda.  It did foam up (a lot), so I added it gradually, and then stirred it with a long spoon to make sure it was dissolved.

Then I poured the baking soda solution into the basin.  (It smelled just like being at Yellowstone--silver tarnish is silver sulfide.  Who knew?)  The tarnish just came off the candlesticks immediately--before all of the water was in the basin, they were already looking shiny.  I let them sit in the solution for a few minutes, then washed them with hot soapy water to get the baking soda and candle-wax residue off.  (There wasn't much wax left inside the candlesticks before I started this, but there was some.)

After they were washed and dried, we polished them up with a silver polishing cloth, and they were beautiful!

Polishing cloth

The candlesticks after

I used the same aluminum foil and baking soda solution for the two candlesticks, the handle of a "hostess plate," a dish that I think is for setting a bottle of wine on, and a pitcher.

The pitcher during--the basin was too small, so you can see  how much  tarnish came off just sitting in the solution for a minute or so.

 The pitcher was too big to be immersed in my small basin, so it had to be turned over during its treatment.

When it came out, it still had some of the bubbly-looking marks on the sides.  My husband said that it was probably a different type of tarnish--not sulfur, and that I should try the polish I had.  And now it worked!

The pitcher after

I am so excited.  My silver looks better than I've ever gotten it before, and with a lot less effort than I've ever put into it!