Reasons why silver jewelry darkens

It often hap­pens that even if you do not wear sil­ver jew­el­ry — a chain, ear­rings or a ring — over time they lose their orig­i­nal radi­ance and begin to dark­en. A sus­pi­cious graphite or brown coat­ing forms on them. You will learn about what sil­ver can dark­en from by care­ful­ly read­ing this arti­cle to the end.

Most peo­ple think that the dark­en­ing of a piece of jew­el­ry indi­cates that it is of poor qual­i­ty or even that it is not real met­al, but a fake. How­ev­er, in fact, dark­ened sil­ver is a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non, due to its chem­i­cal prop­er­ties.

The process of plaque for­ma­tion is facil­i­tat­ed by the fact that sul­fur com­pounds con­tained in the air react with sil­ver, form­ing a dark lay­er on the sur­face of jew­el­ry of any sam­ple.

Even sil­ver jew­el­ry that is not worn often but is kept with oth­er items is sub­ject­ed to this process.

The faster this process occurs, the more sul­fur com­pounds are in the air.

Oth­er fac­tors that can neg­a­tive­ly affect the appear­ance of jew­el­ry are water and cos­met­ics. That is why it is not rec­om­mend­ed to store and leave sil­ver jew­el­ry in the bath­room.

The answer to this ques­tion is com­plex and ambigu­ous. On the one hand, it is dif­fi­cult to find strong sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to sup­port the hypoth­e­sis of why sil­ver turns black.

On the oth­er hand, there are many tes­ti­monies of peo­ple who speak and write that the dec­o­ra­tion began to dark­en after they got sick.

Almost all jew­el­ry is con­stant­ly in con­tact with the human body, that is, with its nat­ur­al secre­tions (includ­ing sweat). Their chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion large­ly depends on food, drugs, and most impor­tant­ly, on the state of health of the body. Released sub­stances can react with sil­ver and thus respond to an irri­tant. It is for this rea­son that a per­son who has been diag­nosed with a dis­ease notices that his jew­el­ry behaves sus­pi­cious­ly — they begin to black­en.

The phrase “pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure” should be the mot­to of any per­son who likes to wear not only sil­ver, but also gold.

There are sev­er­al sim­ple yet effec­tive ways to help extend the life of your jew­el­ry.

First of all, prop­er stor­age. The ide­al place is a closed box or a spe­cial box that cuts off the air sup­ply to the jew­el­ry. Addi­tion­al, but less effec­tive pro­tec­tion is bags or cos­met­ic bags with a zip­per. Jew­el­ry stored this way will remain free of dark deposits much longer and retain its orig­i­nal lus­ter. But an impor­tant con­di­tion is that prod­ucts from dif­fer­ent met­als should not come into con­tact with each oth­er.

The sec­ond rea­son why sil­ver on the body can black­en is improp­er wear and care­less atti­tude.

Since sil­ver does not like water, before every show­er, going to the pool, gym or before wash­ing dish­es, jew­el­ry from it must be removed.

Often what dark­ens sil­ver on the human body is the influ­ence of cos­met­ics. That is why it is not rec­om­mend­ed to wear rings on cre­mat­ed hands or, with­out remov­ing jew­el­ry, lubri­cate hands with cream, spray per­fume on a neck dec­o­rat­ed with a chain. It is also impos­si­ble to store jew­el­ry next to cos­met­ics and per­fumes — it spoils them.

The third is prop­er care. From time to time it is nec­es­sary to clean your sil­ver jew­el­ry with spe­cial prod­ucts. The most pop­u­lar are liq­uids in which jew­el­ry is immersed. Pol­ish­ing foams, pastes and cloths impreg­nat­ed with a clean­ing agent are also con­ve­nient to use. It is enough to rub the item sev­er­al times with a cloth or brush when the sil­ver has turned black to restore its nat­ur­al col­or and shine.

For restora­tive clean­ing of sil­ver you will need:

• small capac­i­ty (in no case met­al, not cop­per!),

• boiled water,

• alu­mini­um foil,

• bak­ing soda.

First you need to put alu­minum foil into the con­tain­er so that its glossy side is on the out­side. Then pour bak­ing soda into a spoon inside, put on or put jew­el­ry in it. Then dip them into poured boiled water and wait a few min­utes (depend­ing on the degree of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion). When foam forms in the con­tain­er, the prod­ucts must be removed, rinsed thor­ough­ly with warm water, and wiped dry with a soft cloth. Every­thing, they will again look like new.

Now you know what exact­ly makes sil­ver items black­en and how to clean them.