Get Your Silverware Sparkling Clean With These 8 Unexpected Household Ingredients

The more proactive you are with cleaning and maintaining silverware sets, the longer they'll retain their shiny appearance. If you don't use most of your silver flatware regularly, it can be tricky to keep it tarnish-free. Those special silver salad servers that you save for dinner parties might be more apt to tarnish at the back of the drawer, and those dainty silver-plated cake forks that spend most of their time stashed away may even develop spots of greenish-hued corrosion if unused for too long. If you pick up some silverware items at a thrift store or estate sale, chances are they, too, might have a dark, dull patina of tarnish. Luckily, you don't need polish or specialized chemical cleaners to remove surface-level tarnish or corrosion from genuine silver flatware. All you need are a few unexpected household ingredients, along with a little elbow grease, to make them shine like new.

The key to cleaning the silver is to use ingredients that counteract tarnish and corrosion, without scratching or etching the metal. Tarnish is caused by a sulfide layer that forms when oxygen and moisture interact with metal, and it can be quite hard to budge just by rubbing. Acidic household substances with a low pH (like vinegar and lemon juice) are pretty effective at loosening this layer, without any risk of scratching the silver. However, while acids can help lift tarnish, you'll want to avoid prolonged exposure. For instance, if you leave your silver items soaking in vinegar for too long, this could etch the surface or even corrode it further, potentially turning the pieces dark and dull. If you're wary to use an acidic substance on your silverware, abrasive household items like toothpaste, cream of tartar, and cornstarch can also provide good results, and all the abrasives on this list are soft enough not to scratch or damage silver. Learn more below about these common household ingredients that have the right chemical makeup for getting your silverware shining.

Cornflour and cornstarch are food ingredients often added to sauces and soups to thicken recipes. Besides upgrading culinary dishes, both can help clean your silverware (cornstarch can help transform your garden, too). Being only mildly acidic and slightly abrasive, these ingredients don't cause an overly harsh chemical reaction with metal sulfides that'll harm the surface, but are still common kitchen ingredients that can clean silverware and remove tarnish. With a composition like fine powder, cornflour or cornstarch forms a gentle paste that effectively removes surface-level corrosion from silver. Kate Dills, president at The Cleaning Authority, told Martha Stewart, "Cornstarch is absorbent, which means it can soak up moisture and oils." This can also be useful for lifting any oil, grease, and food residue that might have built up in decorative grooves on your silver flatware.  

You don't need to measure out any specific quantities for this cleaning recipe. Start by pouring about ¼ cup of cornflour or cornstarch into a bowl. You may need more or less depending on how much silverware needs cleaning and polishing. Add water to the mix until it forms a thick paste. Since you don't have to worry about any harmful chemicals, use your fingers to dip into the mixture and carefully coat each piece of silverware. Let it sit for about 10 minutes before gently scrubbing away the cornstarch, tarnish, and other buildup with a toothbrush or soft rag, like one of Homexcel's Microfiber Cleaning Cloths.

Baking soda is another household ingredient you can leverage to get your silverware gleaming. When used alongside aluminum foil, it's an especially effective item for cleaning genuine silver. Baking soda has an alkaline pH and doesn't create a remarkable chemical reaction on its own. But an electrochemical reduction reaction occurs when you submerge silver items along with aluminum foil in a solution of baking soda and hot water. During this reaction, the aluminum loses electrons, which transfer to the sulfide layer (aka tarnish) on the silver. This reduces the sulfide layer back to silver, essentially reversing the tarnish process.

Simply line the bottom of a baking pan (preferably one that has some kind of coating) with aluminum foil, pile your silverware on top, and pour boiling water over it. Ensure you boil enough water to fully cover the silverware. Add 2 tablespoons of baking soda for every quart of water, though the measurements don't have to be exact. Let it sit for 5 to 30 minutes. You can also try placing the silverware in a pot of boiling water with pieces of aluminum foil, and boil together for roughly 4 minutes. Just take note that all the silver items need to touch the aluminum foil for the electrochemical reaction to take place. 

To retrieve your cutlery, pour off the water. Wear rubber gloves, like the Hinsocha Reusable Nitrile Cleaning Gloves, to avoid scalding yourself. The silverware items might have a slightly rough coating that has a dull look. Don't be alarmed, this is simply the "reversed" tarnish, and should slide right off, but you may have to gently rub away the more stubborn spots with a soft microfiber cloth. This method is considered safe for silver, and is even recommended by restoration societies. The only risk is pitting, which can occur if the aluminum foil becomes coated in debris from the reaction and thereby inert. To prevent this, swap in fresh foil if you notice a buildup on the sheet. If you want to keep your newly polished silver flatware gleaming for longer, you can also use another aluminum foil hack to prevent silverware tarnishing. Before you pack away your silver flatware, line the drawer or other container it lives in with a few sheets of aluminum foil, and see if this slows down subsequent corrosion. 

The next household item you can use in a pinch is vinegar. Distilled white vinegar contains about 5% acetic acid and has a pH level of around 2.5. Acetic acid can effectively dissolve tarnish via a double-displacement reaction that forms silver acetate and hydrogen sulfide. If silver items have developed green spots (this is due to oxidized copper), vinegar can be especially effective, as it's a staple cleaning agent for getting rid of copper tarnish. 

Simply let your silverware sit in a pan with some diluted vinegar for around a few minutes, or apply vinegar to a soft cloth and use it to polish your flatware, rinsing the pieces well afterward. Although distilled vinegar only contains 5% acetic acid, prolonged exposure to acidic substances can cause silver to develop dark discoloration. While vinegar can remove tarnish, it can also speed up corrosion. Therefore, we would use this method with a strong degree of caution. This method is probably more suited to highly corroded pieces (where the green copper oxide has developed) that you want to experiment on, versus treasured family heirlooms. For highly prized sets, we would rather recommend the aluminium foil method covered above, as this is commonly used by restoration experts on antique and valuable silverware items. If you simply want to add some shine to your silverware (and aren't dealing with a lot of corrosion and discoloration), use a cloth moistened in diluted vinegar to buff off items rather than soaking them — as discoloration can occur in as little as 20 minutes in pure vinegar. 

A lot of recipes recommend adding baking soda when using this method. However, this might reduce the effectiveness, as baking soda and vinegar cancel out each other's pH during a neutralizing chemical reaction that occurs between the acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate. If you do want to use some baking soda, apply it after soaking or shining your flatware — using a soft cloth to rub the baking soda over the items. This will act as a mild abrasive, removing any remaining residue, and potentially neutralizing the pH. 

There's another kitchen staple that you can leverage for cleaning silver items without using additional chemicals. Lemon juice is just as acidic as vinegar, and its pH level lies between 2 and 3. It's also antibacterial, antiseptic, and nontoxic. Whether fresh-squeezed or out of a bottle, this fruit contains ascorbic and citric acid, which, like the acetic acid in vinegar, can cause a chemical reaction that dissolves and helps lift the silver sulfide that makes up tarnish. You can further speed up the cleaning and polishing process by adding in an abrasive like cream of tartar, dry milk, or salt, all of which can help to gently scrape away the top tarnished layers even quicker.

If using an actual lemon, cut it into slices and sprinkle the abrasive ingredient of your choice on the fleshy part of the fruit. Rub the metal surface with the lemon until the tarnish starts to lift, rinse it with warm water, and dry it with a clean cloth. If using lemon juice from a bottle, pour it into a bowl. Add enough of an aforementioned abrasive to make a paste. Use your fingers, a microfiber cloth, or a toothbrush to gently scrub the items clean. Finalize the process by thoroughly rinsing the silverware set in warm water and drying it with a clean rag. 

There is a common bathroom product that's also useful for polishing silver. Toothpaste has a neutral to alkaline pH level that ranges between 7 and 10. Its pH doesn't have much effect on polishing silverware, but the abrasive consistency more than makes up for it. Considering toothpaste is designed to clean tooth enamel (which has around the same hardness rating as steel) without scratching it, toothpaste makes a good scrubber for removing silver tarnish.

Pair toothpaste with a traditional toothbrush to scrub silverware. The thin brush bristles are especially good at removing tarnish that's tucked in the nooks and crannies of embossed silverware items. You may need to use another clean toothbrush when rinsing in order to scrape dried bits of toothpaste from the tiny divots in ornate utensils. Dry all of the silverware thoroughly when finished. This is especially important with decorative pieces, since residual moisture expedites the return of metal sulfide or iron oxide. 

The internet was blown away by the cleaning capabilities of Coca-Cola a few years back. Turns out, you can also clean silverware with a can of lemon-lime soda. Any lemon-lime soda will do: 7Up, Sierra Mist, Sprite, or a generic brand, to help remove silverware tarnish. Lemon-lime soda contains citric acid, giving it acidic properties. That, in addition to the soda's carbonation (carbon dioxide which turns into carbonic acid in water, further lowering the pH), can help break down tarnish on the silverware so it can be wiped away. So how does this compare to vinegar? Well, 7Up soda has a pH of around 3.24, just marginally higher than distilled household vinegar. 

Drop your tarnished silverware into a pan or cup filled with lemon-lime soda. Let it sit for a little over an hour before removing the silverware and wiping it clean with a dry cloth. People have tested this method and it does work to a certain extent. However, even though the pH is close-ish to that of vinegar, it seems to require more soaking and rubbing than some of the other household ingredient hacks on this list. 

If you're wondering if ketchup can really clean silver, know that it does, but to a less remarkable extent than some of the other methods listed above. One of ketchup's most important ingredients is vinegar. Vinegar is a major part of the formula, and the sauce contains about 1.5% to 2% acetic acid. This acetic acid content can help loosen layers of tarnish buildup on the silverware, working to break it down. Though, in comparison to using vinegar, which contains about 5% acetic acid, it'll be a lot milder. 

Before you begin with this hack, think ahead to minimize cleanup time. Put your silverware in a bowl, sink, or plastic bag before slathering it in ketchup. Let the silver sit for at least five minutes, though some testers of this method recommend waiting up to 20 minutes. Buff out the ketchup-covered silverware with a soft cloth before or after rinsing, and you should see some of the tarnish stains removed. Given the messiness and amount of ketchup required, this method might not be ideal for a large silverware collection. But if you have one or two pieces that just need a little extra shine, it might be worth experimenting with some ketchup.