Gold plated jewelry tarnished - what can I do?

Your gold-plated jewelry has tarnished and now you're wondering how to make your timeless favorite piece look stylish again? Many people know the problem! The good news: tarnished areas can usually be removed. We'll tell you how best to do this and give you tips to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Prevention is better than cure — Nothing will happen

First things first! To prevent this from happening, you should clean your gold-plated jewelry - every time you wear it. The best way to do this is to use a soft cotton cloth. Make sure that there are no dust or dirt particles on the cloth that could damage your favorite piece. After carefully rubbing it down, it is best to store your piece of jewelry in a small box, a jewelry bag or wrap it in one of our pretty furoshikis . By the way, you should follow this rule: jewelry is always put on last and taken off first! This avoids contact with cosmetics. The same applies before swimming: bye favorite piece, see you later. Chlorine and salt water are not the best friends of your gold-plated pieces.

Luckily, protecting your gold-plated jewelry so that it doesn't tarnish too quickly is exactly the wrong tactic! If you only wear your gold-plated jewelry rarely, this encourages the oxidation that is responsible for the dark spots. This is because the friction on clothing, skin and surfaces reduces the tarnishing process rather than speeding it up.

Cleaning tarnished gold-plated jewelry

Even with gold-plated jewelry that has already tarnished , never use rough or dirty cloths. At first glance, a rough cloth may seem like it will "remove" the unsightly discoloration. However, this is not the case and it also causes unnecessary damage to the delicate gold plating. Harsh cleaning agents or conventional polishes have no place on your piece (really absolutely nothing). No matter how robust the alloy is, chemicals of any kind are simply too intense. Even if they seem to help at first, in the long term the material will be attacked, become much more sensitive and tarnish more quickly. The damage may then be irreversible.

Cleaning gold-plated jewelry – home remedies can also help

Can gold tarnish? Yes! It is practically impossible to have jewelry that does not tarnish. Since it is always a mixture of materials, both gold-plated and solid gold jewelry are never completely tarnish-proof. Rose gold-plated jewelry in particular is more sensitive than yellow gold-plated pieces. This is due to the material mixture of gold, copper and sometimes silver and says nothing about its quality. Fortunately, there are home remedies that can help with stubborn discoloration. You are now asking yourself: "What is the most effective way to clean gold jewelry?" Here are a few tried and tested options:

Baking powder and water

Baking powder or baking soda is ideal for cleaning tarnished gold jewelry because of the fine abrasive particles it contains. To do this, mix baking powder or baking soda with a little warm water to form a paste. Spread the mixture over your favorite piece with a cloth. As with the silver cleaning cloth, the same applies here: don't apply too much pressure! The particles contained in the mixture have an abrasive effect and can clean gently.

Gold cleaning cloth

You may have a silver cleaning cloth in your cleaning supplies. You can simply check here whether it is also suitable for gold jewelry. Otherwise, gold cleaning cloths, which you can buy online or in the drugstore, are the most suitable alternative. You can use them to carefully rub your tarnished gold-plated jewelry and gently remove the oxidized layer.

Ultrasonic basin

Another way to clean gold-plated jewelry if it has tarnished ? An ultrasonic bath! But this should really only be considered if household remedies such as baking soda and gold cleaning cloths are not enough. The rapid vibration of the ultrasound cleans even hard-to-reach areas of the jewelry. You can get such a device in specialist shops or online. Or you can come to our store. We would be happy to clean your jewelry for you on site!

Attention: Not all pieces of jewelry are suitable for cleaning with an ultrasonic device. Especially if you want to clean tarnished gold jewelry that is decorated with stones, you should check carefully beforehand (or ask the retailer) whether the jewelry is suitable for an ultrasonic bath.

Gold-plated jewelry: tarnished is a thing of the past!

As you can see, there are many ways to visually save the appearance of your tarnished gold-plated jewelry. It's best to read our blog article on cleaning silver jewelry . Would you like to read more about the different recycled materials and our sustainable approach? Then you might be interested in our blog article on recycled gold and silver .