How to clean gold with hydrogen peroxide at home?

Gold is called the eternal metal. And this is not just a successful and beautiful metaphor. This is actually true: gold does not oxidize or corrode under the influence of the most caustic alkalis.

But gold jewelry sometimes fades and loses its original appearance. This happens because other metals are added to gold jewelry: silver, copper, palladium, nickel.

After all, gold in its pure form is very soft: you can even make a scratch with your fingernail. Due to various impurities, gold jewelry loses its appearance over time. This is especially true for jewelry with low standards.

But gold can be restored to its original luster. You can have your gold items polished by professionals, or you can clean your gold at home.

Why does gold darken?

Why does your favorite gold ring darken over time? It's all about the impurities that are added to gold when making jewelry. Gold itself in its pure form is a very soft metal. But at the same time it is not susceptible to corrosion and oxidation. But jewelry made of pure gold can simply be damaged by simply squeezing it too tightly in your hand. Therefore, various metals are added to gold to make the alloy stronger.

Depending on what they want to get, different impurities are added to the output:

To obtain yellow gold, copper and silver are added.
For white - manganese, nickel, palladium and platinum.
The red color of the alloy is given by copper - the more of it, the richer and brighter the color.
Green gold contains silver and rubidium.
An unusual black alloy can be obtained by coating the surface with rhodium or ruthenium.

Important! It is these additives that come into contact with the environment, causing dark spots to appear as a result of oxidation. In addition, they come into contact with the skin, and therefore with sweat and sebum, gradually losing their magnificent shine.

Which samples can withstand this treatment?

This cleaning method is suitable for all precious metal samples.

Important: The product sample indicates the gold content in the alloy and is controlled at the state level. The higher the standard of gold jewelry, the higher its vulnerability to damage.

5 samples are considered generally accepted in Russia:

375 (Au 38%)
500 (50.5% gold)
585 (58,5%)
750 (75,5%)
958 (96,6%)

999 - pure gold, hallmark for bullion. In the country's jewelry industry, there are products of 583, 900 and 916 samples, as evidenced by the stamp on the gold jewelry.

Ways to clean gold jewelry

Is it possible to clean jewelry with ammonia? You can preserve the original appearance of your favorite jewelry by cleaning it yourself. But keep in mind that such cleaning should, first of all, be safe for your gold product.

Important! Improper cleaning can briefly restore the color, but at the same time deprive the metal of its protection. Therefore, when choosing products, you need to be careful and not clean your jewelry with anything, especially if you do not know the exact composition of the alloy. White gold, for example, can contain both platinum and nickel, and it is impossible for a non-professional to distinguish them. But platinum is much more stable than nickel, which can be easily damaged when cleaning with aggressive agents.

Hydrogen peroxide

How to clean gold with hydrogen peroxide at home? It can be used as a separate component, that is, simply apply it to a cotton pad and wipe the product until it is clean. To save time and effort, you can clean gold with ammonia and peroxide. This mixture will deal with all contaminants much faster:

Mix 100 ml of hydrogen peroxide and 50 ml of ammonia.
Immerse gold items in this solution for 10-12 hours. Cover the container with a lid to prevent alcohol vapor from evaporating.

Important! To speed up the process, you can add a glass of water and half a teaspoon of washing powder to the prepared solution. Instead of powder, you can use dishwashing detergent. It is better to pour hot water, and it is advisable to use a ceramic or glass container.

The products should be placed in this mixture for 5 minutes, then rinsed and dried.

Ammonia

Using ammonia to clean gold is one of the safest and most gentle cleaning methods. How to clean gold at home with ammonia?

In one glass of water, dissolve one spoon of detergent or washing powder and one teaspoon of ammonia.

Important! Water should be used as hot as possible; the container should be glass.

Gold items should be immersed in this solution for several hours, and then washed and dried.

Detergent

The easiest way is to boil gold in water with detergent dissolved in it. You can use dishwashing detergent or laundry detergent. But in this way only the weakest contaminants can be removed:

Take a small pan and place a rag on the bottom.
Place your treasures that need cleaning on this cloth.
Add one teaspoon of any detergent to a glass of water and pour this solution into the pan.
Boil for 10 minutes. Then take out the jewelry, wash it and dry it.

Salt

You can clean your jewelry with salt, which is found in every kitchen:

Place 5 tablespoons of salt in a glass of warm water and stir until it is completely dissolved.
Place gold items in the resulting salt solution for 7-8 hours. You can leave them overnight in this solution.
Remove the items, rinse and dry with a soft cloth.

Cleaning with foil

This method is very effective, not only for gold, but also for silver. The cleaning procedure will be as follows:

Pour a glass of warm water into a deep plate.
Add 2 teaspoons salt and stir.
Place a sheet of foil at the bottom and the decorations that need to be cleaned on it.
Leave it overnight, then take it out and rinse in water.

Soda and salt

Baking soda and salt together will help defeat pollution:

Dissolve 2 teaspoons of salt and soda per glass of water.
Place gold items in the solution and leave them overnight.
In the morning, rinse them with clean water and dry them.

Important! You can use a soft toothbrush to clean dirt in hard-to-reach places.

You can also boil the jewelry in a saucepan of water with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of detergent dissolved in it.

Other gold purifiers

There are also other folk ways to care for gold jewelry at home:

Wipe the gold item with a napkin moistened with freshly squeezed onion juice. Leave it on for a couple of hours, then wash it off.
Instead of onions, you can use table vinegar.
Lubricate a cotton pad with lipstick and wipe the dirty areas on the product. The lipstick contains titanium dioxide, which is an excellent cleaning agent.

Important! Products with stones cannot be cleaned in this way.

Mix a teaspoon of sugar in a glass of water and add your jewelry to the solution. After 2-3 hours, rinse them with water and wipe with a flannel cloth or cotton pad.
A borax solution effectively cleans gold from contaminants. Borax can be purchased at a pharmacy.
Vaseline, powdered chalk, soap shavings and water clean gold alloys well. Mix all the ingredients in equal quantities and clean tarnished gold items with this mixture.
Mustard powder can also be of great help to you. Simply pour a small amount of powder onto a soft cloth and polish the product with it.

How to clean jewelry?

You can clean precious metal with peroxide yourself. Of course, this procedure is less effective than the one offered by the jeweler, but it will help remove dirt and plaque from the surface of the jewelry.

Hydrogen peroxide

In addition to peroxide, you can use it for cleaning:

Soap or dishwashing liquid.
Powder for washing things.
Ammonia or ammonium peroxide.
Sugar, salt, soda.

You can clean jewelry with peroxide after preparing a special solution. It is not recommended to use only one element. Hydroperite in diluted form or hydrogen peroxide are sold in pharmacies; they have a bleaching effect and react with water (hissing and the release of gas in a small amount). Some time ago, women were frantically buying peroxide, wanting to turn their dark hair white.

To remove dirt and plaque from the surface of gold, it is the property of bleaching or lightening that is needed.

But first, you should prepare a solution in which you will need to immerse the jewelry. The solution contains the following components:

water in the amount of one glass (250 ml);
ammonia, one or two teaspoons;
hydrogen peroxide, 30–35 mg (it is advisable to use a 3% solution);
liquid soap, two teaspoons; If there is no soap, you can replace it with dishwashing liquid.

It is worth using non-metallic dishes for cleaning; porcelain, earthenware, ceramics and even plastic are suitable. Warm water is poured into the container and all the components are added, the solution is thoroughly mixed using a wooden spoon, and all the jewelry that needs cleaning is placed in it.

Gold cleaning

The solution should completely cover the jewelry; you should not disturb or remove jewelry from it. The procedure lasts no more than 10–15 minutes. Then the products are taken out of the solution and washed under a stream of cold water, wiped dry, and polished with suede.

The method is quite reliable, but not very popular for certain reasons. The disadvantages of such cleaning can be considered:

Low efficiency.
Cannot be used to clean jewelry with stones.
Do not use if you need to clean white gold.

The cleaning solution will not help remove dirt from hard-to-reach areas. It will be difficult to clean openwork carvings and other decorative elements from plaque.

Jewelry set with stones is not cleaned this way. Soaking may cause the stone to change color. Minerals, as well as gemstones, react differently to humidity.

White gold is an alloy of several metals; the material itself is capricious, so it is best to clean it in a workshop.

There are several more methods that will help remove dirt, plaque and even oxides from the surface of jewelry:

The easiest and safest way is to wash the item in a soap solution; you can prepare a concentrated product, or you can simply open the tap and wash the jewelry under hot water.
Salt and sugar are suitable for cleaning jewelry. Sugar or salt in high concentration is added to hot water, after which the jewelry is placed in the water. It is better to leave the product in the solution for the whole night, and then rinse with water and wipe with suede.
There is another method - boiling, but it is considered dangerous: not all decorations tolerate increased temperatures well. If the product is inlaid with stones, then you should not boil it; at high temperatures, the stone may darken or even fall out. You need to boil the decorations in clean water, using a metal container, with foil placed on the bottom of the container. Dishwashing detergent is added to the water, then the items are placed and boiled for 15–20 minutes.

If there is a danger of harming the product, then you should refuse to carry out the procedure at home and contact a jeweler.

After each cleaning, the product should be wiped with a dry, soft, lint-free cloth. Be sure to rinse under water, since the reagents can interact with the metal after the procedure is completed. Such contact can lead to the surface of the product being damaged and stains and marks appearing on the jewelry. It will be difficult to get rid of them.

Baking soda and tooth powder are two more ingredients that can be used in the procedure. But they should only be used if there is no fear of damaging the jewelry or scratching its surface. Tooth powder can be replaced with paste, and it is better not to use soda at all unless absolutely necessary.

And one more simple tip: any solution that is intended for cleaning items made of precious metals can be strengthened with soap or dishwashing liquid. If you don’t have anything like that on hand, then laundry detergent is also suitable. But first it should be completely dissolved in hot water so that no grains remain.

Polishing is another important stage; precious metals are polished exclusively with suede or cloth. The fabric must be clean and dry. If you polish your jewelry regularly, they won't need cleaning.

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How can you clean white gold?

Not everyone can afford a high-quality composition with platinum. A cheaper option, which contains nickel, is coated with a layer of rhodium on top - it improves the color and protects human skin from the possible negative effects of nickel. But cleaning with aggressive substances can damage this protective layer.

Therefore, if you do not know the exact composition of your white gold, then you should clean it only with proven safe methods. Among these are the following options:

Beer and egg yolk are used to clean white gold. For half a glass of beer, take one yolk, mix, apply the mixture to a soft cloth, and wipe the dirty areas.
Mix hydrogen peroxide and ammonia and place jewelry in this solution. Leave them there overnight and rinse and dry them in the morning.
If you have a product made of white gold with stones, then take a cotton swab, dip its end in alcohol, cologne or vodka, and gently wipe off the dirt.

Special cleaning pastes

In stores you can easily find special pastes designed specifically for cleaning yellow metal products. They usually consist of molar water, petroleum jelly, vegetable oil, lead carbonate, but more complex compositions can be used. To use, you need to apply a little special paste to a brush with soft bristles and gently wipe the surface of the product with this brush. Movements must be done in one direction. After this, you should rinse the product with vodka (removes fats remaining from the paste), but you can also get by with water. After this, carefully wipe the jewelry and let it dry.

Helpful Tips:

Do not store gold items inside cardboard boxes. Cardboard contains sulfur, which has a negative effect on the gold alloy.
Before playing sports, doing housework related to cleaning or washing, you need to remove your jewelry.
Do not wear them in a bathhouse, sauna, or other places where temperature changes are significant.
Avoid contact with your gold jewelry with cosmetics or perfume.
Store products in such a way that they are not exposed to direct sunlight.

Using ammonia

Before you clean gold at home to make it shiny and look like new, you should prepare all the materials. In this case, you cannot use metal utensils - a ceramic or glass container is perfect; you should also stir the cleaning mixture with either a wooden or glass rod.

Composition of the cleaning mixture:

ammonia - the amount depends on the total weight of the jewelry and its volume.

Cleaning process:

Linen fabric should be placed in one layer at the bottom of a small-diameter container.
Place the decorations on top of the fabric.
Pour ammonia over everything.
Leave for at least 3 hours - the holding time depends on the degree of contamination of the products.
Rinse the jewelry under the tap and wipe dry with flannel.

How to properly clean gold earrings or rings with stones

Jewelry with stones requires a delicate approach and careful handling. In order not to damage the product, you must follow the following rules:

If possible, polish the stones every day with a soft cloth, cleaning them from dust and sweat;
use alcohol less often to clean jewelry, otherwise stones such as pearls, malachite or turquoise will lose their shine; it is better to use cologne;
do not use abrasives or sharp objects even if the jewelry darkens significantly;
when processing products with stones, exclude methods in which it is necessary to immerse the object in a cleaning composition;
When using brushes for cleaning, choose those with soft bristles;
clean jewelry with stones using a cotton swab dipped in the selected composition;
Gold jewelry should be cleaned regularly, even if you rarely wear it;
if you are using a special composition, carefully read the instructions before starting work.

Clean gold only with proven substances, and if you doubt that you will do everything correctly, it is better to entrust this work to a professional.