Homemade jewelry cleaner hydrogen peroxide is excellent to clean jewelry. It can be used to remove tarnish and verdigris from different kinds of jewelry. Together with other tools and agents, its application is broad and effective.
Wikipedia: Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula H2O2
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Hydrogen Peroxide – One of the Best Homemade Jewelry Cleaner
Here are the reasons:
- Safe to use
- Easy to get
- Not expensive
- A good agent to make jewelry dazzling again
Actually, a lot of common household items can be easily used for cleaning jewelry at home, so if you don’t like buying or using commercial jewelry cleaner, you have a lot of options.
Baking soda is often used for cleaning household objects, but did you know that combined with hydrogen peroxide, you can remove stubborn dirt and verdigris from jewelry?
Is It Safe to Clean Jewelry with Hydrogen Peroxide?
Is Hydrogen Peroxide safe to clean gold, silver, fake & costume jewelry?
Does hydrogen peroxide hurt gold and silver? it won’t under gentle use. What’s more? it cleans well safely on all the following:
- fine metal like platinum, yellow gold, white gold, rose gold
- 925 sterling silver, both solid silver and plated one
- fake, fashion, and costume jewelry with metal like stainless steel, alloy, brass, titanium, tungsten
Hydrogen peroxide is safe to clean more of the jewelry base metal. It is totally safe and won’t harm and hurt expensive and relatively stable metals like Gold, Silver. For a better cleaning effect, using hydrogen peroxide with baking soda is said in the following chapter. It is a very common and effective way that professional jewelers use to clean jewelry.
Can It Clean All Kind of Jewelry?
This hydrogen peroxide jewelry cleaner can apply to any kind of jewelry and accessories like:
- ring band
- brooches and charms
- earrings, piercing jewelry
- necklace chain and pendant
- bracelets and bangles
- cuff-link, tie clips, money clips
- any other jewelry piece and fashion accessories
How Often Should You Clean the Jewelry?
Piercing Jewelry: Clean Often
Getting an intimate touch with your sensitive skins, piercing jewelry should be taken care of the most on their hygiene and maintenance. That’s, you should clean it every time you put it on and every time you take it off.
And as you are taking care of those body jewelry and earrings so often, a simple clean process is good enough:
Rinse with clean water > Rub gently > Dry
Extra cleaning agents are needed and even not highly recommended to avoid allergy to the chemical residue. Of course, it is always a must to rinse very thoroughly after every time any chemicals is applied to the jewelry.
And sometimes you are just too long to take off your daily-wearing earrings and lovely piercing body jewelry. The lotions, the daily body oil will trap and stick on the jewelry and maybe on your skin.
Take them off and clean them often with water and sometimes with a natural cleaning agent that will prevent dirt-trapping in the piercing hole. (Note: NEVER apply hydrogen peroxide directly on your skin)
Jewelry with the Setting: Clean Often
Including all gemstone, diamond, and crystal settings, like your solitaire diamond proposal ring, and your amethyst crystal necklace.
Oil, grease, dirt are easily trapped and stick under those setting and prongs. Daily wash and showering may not be able to clean them out. Some weeks after, you may find the sparkling diamond starting to lose its dazzling. Then it will be time to take more steps to make it shine again.
Other Non-piercing Jewelry:
You can clean less often. Gently rinsing with tap water after your whole day’s activity will be nice.
For those, you are wearing all day and will have showering with every day. You only need to take extra steps to clean them when it gets some bad smells, with some oil and greases stuck on.
Two Methods to Make Jewelry Cleaner at Home
Method 1. Mixing Baking Soda with Water and Hydrogen Peroxide
The first method is mixing baking soda with water and then adding a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to the solution. You will then submerge the jewelry into the solution.
Let it stand for about ten to fifteen minutes, and lift out, so you can brush it with a soft-bristled toothbrush. The type of toothbrush that you use is extremely important because hard bristles can actually damage the fragile surface of both genuine jewelry and costume jewelry, so check before brushing.
Method 2: Wet the Jewelry with Water, Then Add the Baking Soda
The second method is wetting the jewelry with some water and then add the baking soda directly. Brush the surface, and then add a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to boost the solution. Quickly rinse the jewelry with some water and pat dry. You can polish the jewelry when the large beads of water are gone and just air dries everything before placing the jewelry back into storage.
RELATED POST: What Do Professional Jewelers Use to Clean Jewelry?
Important Reminders in Cleaning Jewelry
If you are not sure if your jewelry is genuine or not, it would be best to bring them to a jeweler to find out exactly what they are. Some pieces of jewelry are plated with silver and gold or are made with actual precious and semiprecious stones.
 
If this is the case, then you need to be extra careful with the cleaning process, especially with gemstones as these can easily take damage from any kind of moisture. The use of ultrasonic jewelry cleaners is alright as long as you do not use abrasive chemicals to clean your jewelry. These machines are quite easy to use and are friendly to novice DIY jewelry enthusiasts who may be interested in creating and selling their own homemade jewelry.
What Happens if You Use the Wrong Type of Cleaner for Any Kind of Jewelry?
What usually happens is that inappropriate chemicals react with the metals, and the chemical reactions result in permanent staining or discolorations. While the staining may not damage the physical integrity of gold or silver or any kind of metal used in costume jewelry, the discoloration may be permanent.
Cleaning Jewelry with Vinegar
Vinegar has always been the greatest cleaning equalizer around. It is used not just for jewelry, but in the laundry (it removes odors) and cleansing kitchenware like cutting boards that are generally hard to clean well. To clean with this amazing gift from nature, all you need is a shallow basin and some white vinegar.
How to clean
Fill the shallow basin with just enough white vinegar to submerge your jewelry, and then drop everything in there. Soak your jewelry for about 15 minutes, with some slight agitation punctuating the natural cleaning process. After soaking, grab your trust soft-bristled toothbrush and begin brushing away at the verdigris.
You will probably notice that after a quarter of an hour, plenty of dirt and much have already been carried away by the white vinegar. If this is the case and you are satisfied with how your jewelry look (especially costume jewelry, which is sometimes easier to clean), then rinse the jewelry and pat dry. A few more minutes of air drying won’t hurt either, as this will ensure that there is zero moisture before you stash the jewelry again.
Does Peroxide Clean Silver Jewelry?
Hydrogen peroxide can easily clean silver and gold jewelry, as well as fake jewelry/costume jewelry. As we have discussed earlier, it can be used as a boosting agent to remove muck and grime once combined with baking powder.
It has a similar action to white vinegar. For those who are interested in cleaning with mild detergent and water, we recommend that you improve the cleaning solution by adding a few drops of hydrogen peroxide, and a cup of vinegar. If you have more jewelry to clean, feel free to add more vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to ensure that your mixture is potent enough for the cleaning job ahead.
For really old jewelry or jewelry that may have seen better days or may not have been stored properly, you may notice that these pieces will have a darker and more tarnished look to them. It can be frustrating to brush away at such pieces of jewelry and not get good results.
So what you should do if this is the situation at home is to combine detergent, a little bit of water, two cups of vinegar, and about a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide, and then soak everything in this solution from 20 – 45 minutes. (Don’t worry: this is really the amount of time necessary to recondition the surface of the jewelry and naturally remove large quantities of verdigris.)
After soaking, always remember to do a quick rinse to remove traces of detergent and other cleaning agents from the jewelry, and then let the jewelry air-dry naturally.
Can Peroxide Clean Costume Jewelry?
Hydrogen peroxide is definitely safe for cleaning costume jewelry, or fake jewelry. Like authentic jewelry crafted from gold, silver, and precious stones. Costume jewelry also requires periodic maintenance.
Follow the steps we have already outlined earlier to homemade jewelry cleaner for cleaning costume jewelry with hydrogen peroxide. Using a combination of cleaning agents alongside hydrogen peroxide can help improve your chances of thoroughly cleaning even the dirtiest of jewelry. The goal, of course, is to make sure that you are able to restore the beauty of your jewelry and not damage them in the process.
Another Homemade Jewelry Cleaner: Ammonia
Cleaning your costume jewelry with homemade jewelry cleaning ammonia is by far the easiest way to spruce up costume jewelry because all you will need is basically one part ammonia, and six parts of lukewarm water.
Pour the ammonia solution into a non-reactive basic (plastic is recommended) and submerge all the costume jewelry that needs to be cleaned. Let the solution work on the jewelry for about 10 minutes. There is no need to touch the jewelry or brush anything yet. The ammonia will be lifting the stains and dirt, allowing them to loosen from the surface of the jewelry for easier cleaning later.
After ten minutes, it’s time to clean your costume jewelry better with the DIY jewelry cleaner you just created. Grab an old or new toothbrush and start scrubbing away gently at your jewelry. (Tips: Be sure to use a soft-bristled toothbrush so you do not inadvertently damage the surface of your jewelry as this is possible with harder bristles.)
Tools to Clean Jewelry
Small Soft-bristled Toothbrush
You can use either a used one or a new one. Just making sure it is clean. Gently brush the dedicated parts, tiny gaps, and under the settings. Scratches may be left on the metal surface if you brush them too hard.
Ultrasonic Cleaner
While plain water can be used, ultrasonic cleaners work best with special cleaning solutions that amplify their effectiveness. BUT there are some delicate jewelry and gemstone that are not suggested to be cleaned in this way.
RELATED POST: List of 10+ Jewelry that MUST NOT be Cleaned By an Ultrasonic Cleaner
Microfiber Cloth or Towel
Microfiber cloth to gently rub and dry out after rinsing the cleaning agent with water. Fine tissue paper can do the same work but microfiber cloth is most preferred. The surface of toilet paper, kitchen paper are just too rough for rubbing.
Rinse with WATER!
Clean, room temperature running water is essential to rinse the jewelry piece every time after any cleaning agent has been applied on. After that, dry with microfiber cloth gently and keep your jewelry piece in a dry and nice jewelry box.
RELATED POST: How Do You Clean Fake Jewelry At Home?
5 Best Homemade Jewelry Cleaner
Best Homemade Jewelry Cleaner
Here are the best 5 basic cleaners you should have to get your homemade jewelry cleaner. We believe they are all also serving as other cleaning agents in other household situations.
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Baking Soda
- Vinegar
- Ammonia
- Water
Make your own homemade cleaning agent for jewelry by well mixing the natural cleaning product. You will not just help yourself clean at a very low cost, but also help the environment.
More articles you may interest:
Does Hydrogen Peroxide Expire?
Does 14K Gold Jewelry Tarnish and How to Remove Tarnish?
Why Does Jewelry Wire Rust or Tarnish Over Time?
