7/29/2013

Tutorial: How to Clean Your Vintage Jewlery

I am vintage junkie and every time I to the flea market, I can't stop myself from buying at least one vintage jewelry piece. I really like the idea of having a unique piece to wear in this hyper-globalized world, where all of a sudden everybody has a neon mullet skirt stashed somewhere in their closet and ray-ban aviators in their accessories drawer, and of course they are wearing their hair in a top knot, like all the fashionistas from NY, USA to Stockholm, Sweden to Taipei, Taiwan.

Vintage jewelry is from the time before all this cookie cutter craze. I guess that's why I like it so much. I like holding a little piece of history in the palm of my hand:)

Vintage jewelry always gives a contemporary outfit an interesting twist. Because we do live in a hyper-globalized world where it's cheaper to buy a new necklace than mend the old one, I've decided to write a quick and easy tutorial on cleaning vintage jewelry which can also be applied on any kind of delicate jewelry.

Like in all my jewelry cleaning tutorials, I've used an environmentally friendly and bio-degradable ingredient that can be found in every kitchen. So, here it goes, you'll need:
  • regular vinegar (not balsamic!) you'd use for salads
  • a soup plate
  • a brush with soft bristles (can be your old toothbrush)
 Let's take a look at the photo below. The necklace is quite tarnished (dark marks on the white surface) which is typical for the bottom part of the necklaces because it comes in direct contact with your skin, so the oils that your pores secrete in combination with a moisturizer and some dead skin cells is what tarnish actually consists of.




Place the necklace on a soup plate and fill the soup plate with vinegar, enough just to cover the necklace and leave for about 10-15 minutes. TIP: Make sure to leave the soup plate with vinegar someplace airy, preferably your balcony, because otherwise the entire room will reek of vinegar.

Brush off the residues of tarnish with a soft brush and rinse the necklace with warm water

And you're done:)

                                            Before                                                After


The after photo enlarged:

Hope you found this post helpful:)

Take care,

Teja xoxo

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2 comments :

  1. Raindrops of SapphireJuly 29, 2013 at 3:41 PM

    Oh this is really cool! Thanks for the tutorial on this! I really like your blog! I'm glad that I found it! It would be nice if you could stop by my blog sometime too (I'm from England) as I post my outfits, personal style, likes and much more :) :)

    Raindrops of Sapphire

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow this is so useful.

    http://thevulgariangirl.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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