Does Silver Plated Jewelry Tarnish

Exposure to air sterling silver jewelry has a greater tendency to tarnish than jewelry items made of other kinds of metals.

Does silver plated jewelry tarnish.

If some tarnish is being stubborn add more salt baking soda or water. Silver plated jewelry must be cared for properly or it may tarnish or rust. Yes silver plated jewelry does tarnish over time. The tarnish on sterling silver items is usually caused by contact with sulphur compounds.

Unlike sterling silver the tarnish on silver plated jewelry is most of the time irreversible. Make sure that the aluminum foil is in direct contact with the silver plated item. For starters sterling silver tarnishes and regardless of how good it looks today it will lose its luster in the next few months unless you clean and polish it gently. Silver plated jewelry is attractive and lustrous but over time it tends to lose its luster and become tarnished.

Some people let their silver sit for just a minute or two. Tarnishing thus does not mean that the silver is low purity. In cleaning silver plated gentleness and care are required as not to remove the silver plating and exposing the metal under the coat. Moreover this type of jewelry has little resale value unless they are rare or collectible items.

However silver plated jewelry is more durable than sterling silver due to the base metal but the latter is easier to clean. This happens when the silver reacts with moisture and air leading it to oxidize. Silver plating is a process of coating metal jewelry with a thin layer of silver to make it look like solid silver. In most instances you ll notice the tarnish start to dissolve immediately.

You don t even need silver polish or dips to do it. Hydrogen sulfide gas in the air is the main cause of tarnishing and is particularly present in strong smelling pollution and foods such as eggs onions and fish. It is the primary material used for silver jewelry. Others leave it soak for up to a half hour.

To restore the piece to its original shine the jewelry needs to be properly cleaned and taken care of. While you can have it professionally cleaned it is less expensive to clean silver plated jewelry at home. If the third option does not restore the original luster of your jewelry or silver plated items then a reversal of silver sulfide or tarnishing may be in order. Using aluminum foil you can create a chemical reaction to reverse the tarnishing process to restore silver sulfide to plain sterling silver.

As such it is important that you know how to tell if something is real silver. If you want jewelry that will not tarnish and look as good as new every morning this article identifies some of the best jewelry metals that do not tarnish. There are a number of things one can do to prevent their silver plated jewelry from easily tarnishing. Moreover as sterling silver has higher percentage of silver it will tarnish much slower than silver of low purity.