Fantastic DIY Jewelry Cleaner

In the days before I had children, back when I had the luxury of carefully choosing matching outfits and accesories, I used to wear a lot of sterling silver jewelry.

For the past several years, I've pretty much worn the same jewelry every day, my wedding rings, small earrings that I wear 24/7, and a stud in my nose.

I recently rummaged through my jewelry box, and was sort of horrified to see how tarnished everything had gotten.

A couple of days ago, while browsing Pinterest, I saw a recipe for DIY jewelry cleaner and although I sort of doubted it would really work, I gave it a try. (It was made out of stuff I already had lying around the house, so I wasn't out any money or real effort if it didn't work.)

I rounded up a handful of really tarnished, dirty jewelry to start with.

Sterling silver jewelry, before cleaning.

If you're going to test something, you may as well really test it, right?

Sterling silver jewelry, after cleaning.

As you can tell in the after picture, it worked almost unbelievably well. (You can also tell need a manicure, but nevermind that. Also, in case you were wondering, I wouldn't typically wear all that at once.)

I decided to do a second batch on tarnished gold jewelry, most notably my really tarnished white gold wedding rings, which I've had no success on, even using commercial jewelry cleaner.

Gold jewelry, before cleaning.

I thought it worked pretty fabulously on the gold as well, but the earrings, which had been  the worst of the lot, still had a bit of tarnish. My wedding rings were much shinier.

Gold jewelry, after cleaning.

Have you discovered any Pinterest miracles lately?