Did you know?

That aluminum foil, salt, baking soda, and hot water can clean the tarnish off of silver jewelry! I had a bunch of tarnished silver jewelry. Since I have no money, cause still no job, I didn't want to buy some expensive jewelry cleaning kit that probably wouldn't work that well, so I hopped on google and typed "how to clean tarnished jewelry" and I found the answer to my question! I found a simple and free! way to do it. So I tried it.

I went into my kitchen took a bowl and covered it in aluminum foil, added a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of baking soda, and some hot water. Then I stirred till it was all dissolved. Next I had to see if this easy and free recipe worked, so I took one of my rings that I wasn't all that attached to and I put in the solution. I pulled it out and it had worked! But beware it kind of stinks...

Some of the more tarnished jewelry I had to let soak, but it worked for the most part on all of my rings, earrings, bracelets, and necklaces!

This is the chemistry behind it and how it works. Kinda cool! Silver sulfide is the stuff that makes your silver look grayish over time. This process is called oxidation. When immersed in the baking soda/salt solution, the aluminum reacts with the silver sulfide, pulling the sulfur atoms out and "plating" them onto the aluminum as aluminum sulfide. The silver that remains from the reaction is redeposited onto the silver.

P.S. I found out a little after I finished this great experiment that it left my hands quite dry, so either wear gloves or have some lotion handy. I think the lotion handy option is better.