How To Polish
Copper Jewellery
Like most metal copper will naturally tarnish over time, and for some and on certain items that vintage tarnished look is preferable, but I'd wager that in terms of copper used within jewellery most people would prefer that it looked as fresh and sparkly as when brand new.
There's a really easy way to achieve this and while I've used the word 'polish' to be honest there's not much polishing to it, just a bit of dipping and 60 seconds worth of rubbing to get your copper jewellery back to bright.
I'm sure the wide variety of slightly differing methods and articles you can find in Googletown all work just as well but I picked the easiest one with the fewest ingredients because I know I'm busy and I'm sure you are too. This is it below ...
Yep, that's really all there is to it. This method was selected via a quick Google search for a copper cleaning article, and in seconds I found one that described itself as super quick and easy.
The guide advised using lemons and salt and promised me 60 seconds results. So, I went into my fridge and didnt' have any lemons and do decided that "Really, this is just about citrus fruits isn't it ..." and decided to try out an orange instead - it works too, just as quickly and easily.
It took just the 60 seconds promised of dipping and rubbing the orange innards around the copper jewellery piece to shine it up like new and so this is the method I'm going to be using myself and popping into gift boxes with every order of a copper jewellery piece that is suited to this cleaning method - as shown in my photo above.
There are other copper cleaning methods available and I've detailed these below.
Some use slightly different ingredients and you might find them better for you, because ... well maybe you don't have any citrus fruit in your fridge today and you're in a rush for shiny copper jewellery.
Several Copper Cleaning Methods from WikiHow - involving salt, baking powder, vinegar, citrus ... or ketchup!
CAREFUL: Some cleaning ingredients can damage gemstones, if your copper piece contains gemstones you should take it to a jeweler to have it cleaned as each gemstone can have special needs; for instance some are porous and should not be soaked in any solution at all, such as pearls.
Gemstone settings can also be loosened with acidic cleaning methods, especially those that are set with glue.
We also do not recommend using acidic citrus, salts, soda or vinegar on any type of 'plated' jewellery, the method is best for solid copper and solid metals only. Gold and silver plating in particular only has a very thin covering on top of a different metal core and can easily be coroded off.
We'd even exercise caution with silver filled metal, which while more sustantial than plated, still only offers a 10% covering of the precious metal.
When in doubt, visit a jeweler.
