If you've ever polished the family silver, you've had your introduction to cleaning sterling by means of chemical compounds. There are sprays and dips intended for use on jewelry, as well, but because we prefer to keep our chemical use to a minimum, we have no experience with them. These are the methods we've used.

Polishing Cloths

Polishing cloths are portable and easy to use. The brand we carry, Sunshine Polishing Cloths, are generally most favored because they do an excellent job of cleaning and removing tarnish without the mess of rouge impregnated polishing cloths. They're recommended for all precious metals and can be used until the cloth is completely black on both sides. They are not washable and should be thrown away at that point.

Baking Soda Paste

Before I had a tumbler, I cleaned and polished my sterling using a paste of baking soda and water and an old toothbrush. It really brings out the shine and I recommend this method whenever a tumbler isn't available. To clean deeply tarnished sterling, the piece can be covered with the paste in a bowl and left to soak overnight. I ruined some amber that way once, though, so use caution and don't leave any questionably soft gems to soak.

Aluminum Foil & Washing Soda

Line the bottom of a glass pan with aluminum foil, shiny side up. Boil water. Lay the jewelry on the foil (it must be touching aluminum) and sprinkle it with a generous amount of washing soda. Washing soda is an old fashioned laundry additive that might be hard to find locally. This is what it looks like. Baking soda will work but it doesn't work as well as washing soda. Let the boiling water cool a bit and pour it in the pan to cover the jewelry. Bear in mind that the water must be very hot and some stones are sensitive to heat. I cracked some fluorite doing this but that's been my only casualty. You'll see bubbles forming. Very quickly, the tarnish will jump off the jewelry and get on the aluminum. It just takes a minute, then you can remove and rinse the jewelry and it'll be bright again.

You know those kits sometimes advertised on tv that are said to remove tarnish like magic? This is how they work. They come with an aluminum plate but otherwise this is the same method. If you use this method frequently, you might consider getting such a kit because the plate is convenient and reusable but try it this way first to make sure you like it.

This method is particularly good for removing tarnish from coils and other tight places. It leaves sterling and argentium very white but not necessarily shiny. If you find that your now very clean jewelry still needs a shine, you can use a tumbler, a polishing cloth, or the mild abrasive action of the baking soda paste method, as described above.