|

An Easy Way to Polish Tarnished Silver Trophies

Today, I’m excited to share with you an easy way to polish tarnished silver trophies.

Oh my gosh you guys, last month I was cleaning some of the old silver-plated trophies I was going to use in the newly made over display cabinet when I found myself in a major pickle.  I normally love the look of tarnished silver but having it all in one place made the entire cabinet look kind of heavy, so I decided to lighten the trophies up by polishing them.

 

I found several articles online about how quickly a bath of vinegar, salt, baking soda and hot water could take the tarnish off silver and silver-plated trophies so I gathered all the materials I needed and got to work.

Now, I don’t know if I overestimated the ingredients or under estimated them but imagine my SHOCK and HORROR when my vintage silver trophies started turning white and yellow. I nearly lost it!

Not only that, several of the newly polished pieces were supposed to be used on the Bliss Barracks Lanai Makeover and I had no idea how I was going to explain to my Mom that I had ruined some of her silver pieces too.

I was seriously starting to panic, ready to drive to town in a messy bun and no makeup for a commercial silver polish when I decided to search online one last time to see if there was a way to fix old trophies that had turned white or yellow. Most of the information I found pointed me back to the articles that used the vinegar solution – eeek!

Thankfully, someone had left a comment in the comment section of one those posts asking for help after he had accidentally spilled a bleach like chemical on his wife’s silver necklace. I could not believe it when several readers told him to try using – blue toothpaste – to polish the silver necklace.

Have you guys heard of using toothpaste to polish silver before?

This was the first time I had ever heard of it!

As I’ve shared with you guys in the past, I live between 35 and 40 minutes – one way – to town and I knew the longer the vinegar solution set, the worse those silver trophies were going to get.

So, I took the chance and used the toothpaste method and it worked!

Just to be clear, I would not use this method on my family’s antique silver serving pieces or heirloom pieces of jewelry.  I wouldn’t use this method on a real silver vintage trophy either.  Those pieces all need to be cleaned and polished using the advice of a jeweler.

That said, most of the pieces you see here were picked up at charity shops, thrift stores, estate sales and antique malls and were purchased at very reasonable prices.  So, for me, it was worth taking a chance on using blue toothpaste as a polish.

Here are the steps you’ll take for an easy way to polish tarnished silver trophies in case you want to try this method too…

Step #1: Apply a small amount of toothpaste for a toothbrush to the tarnished trophy.  If you’re working on a larger piece or if your trophy is really tarnished, you’ll likely need more.

Step #2: Add a bit of water to a toothbrush (if your piece has a lot of detail work) or use a wet cloth to rub the toothpaste into the trophy.

Step #3: Rinse off the toothpaste with warm water.

Step #4: Dry thoroughly with a soft cloth.

This technique is something you can easily do while you’re watching a movie or tv, or listening to a podcast, an audio book or music – it’s that simple!

I still have several other silver pieces I need to polish but for now, I’m thankful there was a quick solution to those silver trophies I had unintentionally turned white and yellow. Here’s another look at the collection of trophies before…

and after…

I mean, the transformation is kind of hard to believe right? I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes open for more tarnished trophies now and I hope this makes you see all those pieces you might have passed up in the thrift store in a fresh way too!

Have you guys ever tried the toothpaste method for polishing old silver pieces before? We’d love to hear about your experience! Until next time, I’ll see you on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Many blessings,

CoCo

Similar Posts

5 Comments

  1. Hey CoCo – Your silver transformation is like night-and-day results! We have used toothpaste to clean silver jewelry and we have used it on non-valuable silver pieces in our homes. It’s almost like a fun science experiment. So glad that you were able to turn your frown, upside down LOL! Much love!

  2. I cant believe toothpaste worked that well Coco. These look like newly polished pieces. I’m not into tarnished silver so I pass these up at estate sales all the time but those days are over now ? Thanks for the heads up

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *