This the way my mom taught me to clean and polish silver when I was growing up. I’ve tried a few different methods, but I always come back to this one.
Of course, it all started out with a whole load of really tarnished silver:
And there’s more too. It’s pretty bad how much tarnished silver I have on my shelves. What better time than a chilly Winter day to get cozy and shine up your silver though?
It’s a pretty simple process. You just need a little bowl of water, some toothpaste and an old toothbrush.
Wet your brush, squirt on a little toothpaste and then brush your silver’s pearly whites…er… silvers!
When you think it’s pretty good, rinse it all off with warm water and dry with a tea towel. Here are a couple of candle sticks. One’s the before and one’s the after.
Now, truth be told, I just like to use the toothbrush cause it’s kinda fun. It’s really not a necessary part of the process and if you have something special and delicate, you can just use a soft cloth with the toothpaste.
I had one little piece that I really didn’t want to use anything too harsh on so I just smeared a little toothpaste all over it with my finger, let it sit for a bit, rinsed it and then dried it off with a towel. It still worked!
It worked for everything!
The best part is that if you realize your silver is looking a little sad, you (most likely) always have some toothpaste available to polish it up. No special cleaners or big messy processes required!
Try it out!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.