A TikToker has gone viral after revealing a simple trick to restore your sterling silver jewellery to all its shining glory in just 2 minutes! All you need is a bowl, hot water and baking soda..
Emma then placed her 925 sterling silver jewellery into a bowl lined with aluminium foil, added baking soda and poured hot water over the top. A few minutes later and ta-daaaa, it was transformed from dull to shiny almost instantly!
'You can use this on earrings, necklaces, anything with real diamonds or fake diamonds, just as long as it's 925 [sterling silver]' Emma said.
So what’s the science behind it all? Well it’s believe a chemical reaction occurs between the baking soda and silver when the hot water is added, which removes any dirt and tarnishing.
In the comments Emma also recommended using a toothbrush to carefully clean each piece followed by a polishing cloth, ‘'I work at Pandora and the best way is to soak it in warm soapy water and scrub gently with a toothbrush! Use our polishing cloth, it's how we do it!'
Since being published, the video has been viewed a staggering 948,000 times and received hundreds of comments. Check it out below and if you give this a go with your Cameo jewellery be sure to let us know!
@emmarararara wowwwwww definitely worth trying #jewellery #silver #hack #cleaninghack ♬ original sound - Ash Atkinson
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So when I trained as a body piercer this was in fact one of the very first questions I asked: Why is it better to pierce with a needle rather than a gun?
Healing and hygiene. Now let me explain that a bit more… When we pierce with a needle, the needle comes in different sizes and this size corresponds to the needle thickness. When the needle goes through your ear it cuts away away a piece of your ear. That's why you will often see earrings sized by gauge - 18G for example. An 18G needle has a diameter of 1.3mm so this is the size of the hole we take away from your ear and replace with a stud. By creating this space for the earring, it’s far kinder to your ear and easier for it to accept the new jewellery. Combined with an appropriate length bar, you'll get a lovely heal on your new piercing.
Now, the piercing gun.. The piercing gun has almost a stapler mechanism. It punches a stud with a pointed end through your ear with enough force that is breaks the skin. The skin is then expected to stretch in order to accommodate the piercing. Something it won’t naturally want to do. A super tight butterfly back fastening clamps the earring shut not allowing for any swelling and barely allowing any air to get to the piercing to heal. Gun piercings often come with the upsell of an aftercare lotion that wouldn’t be necessary with a needle piercing as homemade salt water will do the job just as well.
Now for the hygiene part. I can tell you that when I trained in piercings, I spent just as much of my course learning about the importance of using sterile instruments, needles and jewellery as I did actually piercing. As a professional piercer I have to ensure that once I have used my clamp to pierce someone’s ear that it goes straight into disinfectant. Once my client leaves it goes into an ultrasonic cleaner before it goes into an autoclave - an oven like machine used by doctors and dentist that kills all bodily fluids and returns the clamp to a sterile state. Now that’s just for the clamp! The piercing needles come individually packaged and are binned after a single use. The jewellery itself arrives sterilised and pre packaged also. If not then I repeat the same sterilising process as the clamp.
So here is the problem with gun piercings - you quite simply cannot sterilise a piercing gun. An antiseptic wipe just isn’t going to do the job of removing any drops of blood, serum or skin. Therefore you have a risk of cross contamination. Especially if the earrings have to be positioned in the gun before they are forced through your ears, just think of what bacteria they could pick up on the way. Google it if you dare.
Now the chances of catching anything sinister are very low so my intention with this blog post is not to terrify you but to give you the facts. And the fact is that you cannot guarantee the same level of sterility that you can with the piercing needle.
On a final point, yes gun piercings can shatter cartilage and under no circumstances should the cartilage in your ears or nose be pierced with a gun. Cartilage will not stretch to accommodate a stud like the lobe eventually would, it’s more than likely that not only would it be extremely painful - you’d run a much higher risk of an infection, shattering the cartilage which can cause the ear to collapse, and the piercing closing as soon as an earring is removed.
So if like me, you sat in a shop window at 8 years of age and had your first piercing with a gun, then don’t panic. Chances are that your piercings healed fine. But the future of piercings is definitely with a needle by a trained professional. Let me know your own experiences below!
]]>A few months ago we asked our Instagram followers for ideas on what they would like us to do next and one of the replies got us thinking... A follower asked, what should I wear in my ear piercings on my wedding day? Now, as a fellow bride-to-be and piercing addict - I completely understood her question. For years, piercings have been considering edgy, rebellious, punk... not exactly words you then associate with a bride!
So myself and the team at Cameo put our heads together and drew up a collection which mostly centred around 'diamonds and pearls' whilst trying to consider all piercings. Another factor was if the bride wanted to co-ordinate with her bridesmaids and gift them some earrings on the day. Obviously not all brides or bridesmaids have tonnes of piercings so we had to make sure each piece was special enough to stand out in its own right.
Along with some pieces that already existed on the Cameo website - the Sapphire Hoops for example, which make for the perfect 'something blue,' we put together what we are calling The Bridal Edit. A selection of stud, hoop and huggie earrings that we would recommend for any upcoming brides and bridesmaids to be.
Check it out by clicking here and let us know what you think in the comments below!
]]>Pure silver does not tarnish but unfortunately it is too soft to be used in jewellery crafting so we add a small quantity of copper to strengthen the silver. The resulting product is .925 Sterling Silver which is 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. The yellow or black discoloration of sterling silver items is a result of the added copper reacting with the salt and sulfur in the air.
Tarnishing can take place even faster if sterling silver comes in contact with detergents or cosmetics. Even just the chemicals in our sweat is enough to cause corrosion.
The good news is that with sterling silver, regular care can really slow down the tarnishing, unlike silver-plated jewelry which will deteriorate no matter what. And even if your silver jewellery already has a bit of tarnishing, then a good home clean-up, or better, a professional polishing, can bring it back to glory.
]]>A light cleaning should be done at least weekly if you wear the jewelry a lot or monthly if you don’t. Take this light cleaning as a preventive measure. Polishing silver is pretty simple and fast if you have a chemically treated silver polishing cloths, which you can get pretty cheap from Amazon
If your Sterling Silver jewellery has already lost the shine and started to look dirty with black spots, it is already tarnished. A quick, light cleaning as described will be of hardly any use to bring the silver back. In this case, we would recommend bringing your silver jewelry piece to a jewelry store or repair shop for a professional cleaning.
For a quick touch up, you can find a jewellery cleaning solution online and all you have to do is put the jewellery into the drip tray, leave it there for up to 30 seconds, run the provided brush over the item, and rinse the jewelry under lukewarm water.
Make a thick paste with 1/4 cup baking soda and two tablespoons of water. Apply on the silver using a damp sponge, then rinse with water and dry.
Pour white vinegar in the jar until the jewellery is completely immersed. Let it sit for 2-3 hours, depending on how tarnished the silver is. Then, rinse and dry the jewellery.
]]>Water generally doesn’t harm sterling silver, but there is a good chance that it could lead to tarnishing. So yes, you can shower with sterling silver but we would always recommend removing your jewellery if you are prone to tarnishing.
As salt water causes corrosion in sterling silver then we generally advise you avoid wearing jewellery in activities that make you sweat. Or you can keep sweat away from earrings by carrying a towel and wiping away during workouts to avoid it getting near!
If you deal with chemicals or other solutions on a regular basis then it’s best to remove your silver before working with chemicals. For example, people working a lot with cosmetics or perfume might find themselves having to clean their silver jewelry more regularly. Also if you live in a city centre your jewellery might tarnish faster due to high level of pollution in the air.
And then in some cases, it might just be your body chemicals. Some people just react with sterling silver and cause tarnishing much faster than others. Frustrating I know! But it shouldn’t put you off wearing sterling silver. Just wear earrings in lobe piercings, not cartilage, take your jewellery out at night and never wear in the shower.
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