I thought I would share a tip on how to go for longer periods in between having to clean your jewelry pieces when storing them. As you may know Silver, Copper, and many other metals commonly used for making jewelry tarnishes over time. Tarnish is basically a nicer way of saying rust in this case, and like common rust on iron, or iron alloy materials is normally caused by similar things. The two biggest culprits in the case of jewelry are moisture and of course oxygen. Knowing that there are a some things you can do to limit these forces from reacting with your jewelry with items you probably already have around the house.

The easiest way to prolong time between needing to clean your jewelry is to place it in a Ziploc bag(not brand specific but the easiest way to describe this kind of bag) with a folded up piece of paper towel in it (If you have some of those silicon desiccant packs, like those that sometimes come with electronics, shoes, or other items they would work even better). What you want to do is when you are finished wearing your piece (or after cleaning) carefully place it in a Ziploc with the paper towel (or desiccant pack) and gently remove as much air from the bag as possible (being careful not to damage your piece) and then seal it. You can then store your piece as normal inside the bag.

What this does is it allows any humidity in the bag to be absorbed by the paper towel, and limits the air available to react with the metal. This isn’t to say you will never have to clean your jewelry again as of course there are small amounts of air and moisture still trapped in the bag. But it should help reduce the effects of oxidation when you are not wearing a piece.

There are of course also commercially available waxes that also help prevent tarnish. They work by sealing the metal in a coating thus not allowing any exposed surface area to react with moisture. The down side of these (besides having to purchase them) is that they wear off over time and must be reapplied. Some people also use things like clear fingernail polish to accomplish the same effect, but I am not particularly a fan of this. Among other things most paints and polishes have chemicals you probably don’t want to be wearing against your skin for protracted periods of time. I would also caution against using coatings on ear wires or posts on earrings as the skin on your ear tends to be more sensitive to such things as it does not come into contact with chemicals as often as say your hands do.

Remember tarnish isn’t always a bad thing either. It can really bring some depth out of a piece of jewelry. Especially when you have a textured piece, if you lightly polish the high points and leave the tarnish in the low spots it will really accent the texture. I actually intentionally tarnish some of my pieces for just this reason. I normally use liver of sulfur to speed up this process, but that’s a story for another post. The big dipper pendant pictured at the top of this post is an example. I felt the darker tarnished copper looked better than bright copper for the night sky. It also helps bring out some more of the textured detail in the reticulated silver moon. Also remember tarnish is a very organic kind of thing, it will of course change over time, but that’s part of what makes it interesting.