How to clean gold tarnish

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Caring for your gold jewelry is pretty straightforward but you may find a bit of gold tarnish. Gold itself doesn’t tarnish, but gold for jewelry is always an alloy – it’s the base metal the gold is mixed with that’s discoloring.

Here are some cleaning tips:

Cleaning Gold Jewelry to Remove Tarnish:

To clean gold jewelry that does not include any soft gemstones, pearls or crystals put the gold jewelry into warm sudsy water containing a few drops of mild dishwashing liquid such as Dawn, Ivory or Simple Green, and rub gently with your fingers or a cotton swab.

Do not use toothpaste or baking soda to clean gold jewelry.

Rinse your gold jewelry thoroughly with warm water and dry with a cotton cloth. Before storing, let the gold jewelry lie flat and air dry completely, overnight if possible. Moisture speeds the tarnishing process so it’s important to make sure your gold jewelry is dry before putting it away.

Machine cleaning: If your gold jewelry still looks dark, it may need aggressive machine cleaning. Most jewelers have some type of automatic cleaning equipment, such as an ultrasonic, ionic or steam cleaner, and experience using it so they can give you advice about whether such cleaning is safe for your specific piece of gold jewelry.