The Best Homemade Jewelry Cleaner

Photo:WeddingWire and Shutterstock 

Truthfully I rarely clean my rings, earrings, bracelets, or necklaces at home, and only once have I taken my jewelry in for a professional checkup and cleaning. Luckily, the one time I did so was right before COVID shut everything down for 2 years. Why suddenly I decided to do so is a mystery, but I'm happy I did. A designer at Effy cleaned a few pieces for me, and we ended up talking for 3 hours about jewelry and life ... in 2019 before the world paused. What a fond memory!

Don't soak pearls in soapy water, wrap them in cloth.

Having our fine jewelry checked for loose stones and professionally cleaned is an important step in keeping it maintained and sparkling. I aim to become more diligent in doing it. Experts tell us to have our fine jewelry cleaned every 6 months, and I'll shoot for at least once a year. In reality, 6 months will blaze by before I realize it has.🙂

A few good habits I've already established include always removing my jewelry (consisting mostly of rings and earrings) when showering or doing household chores, and I apply hand cream ringless. With the exception of traveling, I always remove my jewelry before bed and put it in a safe designated place so the jewelry doesn't get tangled, damaged, stolen, or lost. In fact, everything in your home should have an assigned place. (Away from home I sleep without removing my rings and earrings so I don't leave them behind.)

Now I aim to get into the habit of cleaning my jewelry at home in-between yearly professional cleanings. The following is how jewelers advise we do it ...

The Best At Home Jewelry Cleaner is none other than soapy warm water. Everything else (vinegar, alcohol, baking powder, salt, or ammonia) is potentially too harsh on gemstones.

Tools and Directions:

1) Add a few drops of Dawn dishwashing liquid into a bowl. It could be any mild dishwashing liquid, but I notice many jewelers use Dawn and therefore so will I.

2) Fill the bowel with lukewarm (not hot) water. Let your jewelry soak for a few minutes to allow the soapy water to loosen any dirt. It turns out that soap works this same way in removing all grime, whether the dirt is on your hands or on your clothes. Soap works by loosening the dirt.

3) Stroke the prongs and around the stones with a new soft bristle toothbrush. Use a new, not an old toothbrush as an old toothbrush may have toothpaste residue on it that is potentially too abrasive for many stones.

4) Rinse with clean water - Some jewelers like to use distilled water for the wash and rinse cleaning cycles of jewelry. Personally, I just use tap water. :) 

5) Dry your washed jewelry by laying on and gently rubbing with a soft cloth.

Effy designed

Extra Tips:

1) To be ultra-safe only clean your diamonds, sapphires, and rubies at home as these are your harder more durable stones. Let the professionals clean your emeralds and softer gems unless you have gemstone knowledge. Emeralds have more inclusions and are brittle and oiled, and some other stones may be sensitive to a change in hot or cold temperatures. A jeweler will know the risks of each type of gemstone and how to properly clean them without damaging the stones. So if in doubt, leave a stone out of soapy water, and don't clean with ultrasonic or steam machines! At times I'll run an emerald under warm water.

2) Diamonds ByBonneJewelry dries her diamond rings (on the right👉) with a hot blow dryer to get them to glitter by preventing water spots from forming, but since I'm not a jeweler like Bonnie I'm too chicken to use a hot blowdryer on a piece. When in doubt, leave the heat out!

3) To rinse the jewelry I hold it under the running tap water of a faucet with the sink's stopper plugging its hole in case I drop the piece. If there's any chance your jewelry will go down the drain, go a step further and get out a 2nd bowl filled with clean rinse water. Be safe, not sorry!

So what did we learn today? The best jewelry cleanser for at-home cleaning is sitting right on your kitchen sink: Dawn dishwashing liquid in lukewarm water! It lifts away dirt and safely keeps your sparklers sparkling! Additionally, buy distilled water if you wish; and if brave enough, on diamonds only, dry with a blow dryer for extra shine.

Almost everyone has a few pieces of fine jewelry ... perhaps an engagement ring, or special occasion gift. Keeping it sparkling is simple!

Except where noted, I grabbed the jewelry examples from Macy's website. You always get lovely eye candy on THE SAVVY SHOPPER. You're welcome!

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Homemade Window And Stainless Steel Cleaners

Photo and linked article Bob Villa - with his advice 

I'm not against using Windex to clean glass or windows, but the size of the bottle keeps shrinking, and I'm simply tired of restocking it! Sooo, I stopped buying Windex. Now I buy a 32-ounce bottle of pure ammonia. Mix it with water -- about 1 part ammonia to two parts water poured into a spray bottle -- and voilà ... use it to clean glass; mirrors; counters; sinks; sometimes a bathroom floor; other surfaces; toilet bowls (avoid pouring it in the tank since over time ammonia could damage the mechanisms inside the tank), as well as, for wiping down big and small appliances. Saves time and money with less restocking: Dilute, delete, and next!

Check out Bev's chart.

Another offering for Streak-free Window Cleaner can be made by pouring: 1 cup water, 1 cup rubbing alcohol, and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into a spray bottle. Frankly, I don't waste my alcohol making this one since a little extra rubbing with a clean paper towel after a spritz of the ammonia and water mixture works as well ... and to my satisfaction. 

Next up: A Stainless Steel Cleaner is a tad harder to replace but not impossible. As it turns out, I find bottles of stainless steel cleaner at T.J. Maxx for $3 - $4 so continue to buy them. IMHO nothing works quite as well. What's more, making stainless steel cleaner is not a one, but two-step effort, therefore more time-consuming. In a pinch, here's how: Use white vinegar to break down grease and grime. The 5% acid in white vinegar will not hurt your stainless steel.

Repeat the spritz and wipe if needed. (There is a 6% acid white vinegar that is also safe to use if you feel like hunting for it. I'm trying to reduce not add another product and job to my cleaning routine. 5% ... sold!)

Next polish the stainless steel with food-grade oil. People commonly use olive oil, but home building expert, Bob Villa's website, says to use food-grade mineral oil to avoid the risk of the olive oil going rancid with prolonged sunlight. For sure expert advice, although I've never heard of food-grade mineral oil ... and I bet it's more expensive than my $3 Stainless Steel Cleaner, which is readymade! So in a pinch (of running out of Stainless Steel Cleaner), I would use olive oil. Shhhh, we won't tell Bob Villa!

In looking for photos after writing today's blog, I stumbled upon  Bev's The Make Your Own Zone blog, which looks awesome! Join me in checking out her website for useful tips. Like me, I bet she settles for plain ole 5% white vinegar and olive oil in her cleaners in lieu of running around town to find stuff nobody ever buys.😛

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Are You Handwashing Clothes During Covid-19?

In Manhattan how lucky am I to live in a highrise with a clean and modern laundromat in our basement? But during Covid-19, I'm scared to go down there to do laundry! I think catching the virus is a numbers game. If you don't have to go somewhere where unknowns are, don't do it! We are stopping the spread in lockdown by limiting our possible contacts with asymptomatic people who have it. So I made a point of doing all my laundry a few days before the lockdown started (washing my hands like a maniac in the laundry room) and only venturing down there once (to wash bed sheets and towels) after our lockdown began on March 22nd.

Since our sheltering at home, I sort of wear a pandemic

uniform consisting of easy-to-hand-wash garments: undies, t-shirts, socks and leggings. My pajamas are an over-sized t-shirt. And this week I began wearing a few Old Navy rayon swing dresses. All are relatively easy to hand wash and hang up to dry. (The only other times I ever handwash anything is while staying in a hotel for a week.)

Before the pandemic, you could not have gotten me to handwash my clothes at home! It would have felt like torture. I make a point of buying clothes that say: machine wash and dry. And yet, here we are! Actually, I was less afraid to touch the things in our community laundry room the 2nd time around then the 1st time at the beginning of our pandemic. Really, the coronavirus can't penetrate our skin. After we touch the common doors of washers and dryers, we just need to be careful not to touch our faces and wash our hands. A sink and liquid soap sit in our laundry room to do so. I'm more worried about other people coming into the laundry room while I'm down there, which didn't happen either time.

In fact, I learned a few things by handwashing my clothes in my bathroom sink:

1) I own far too many clothes I do not need and do not wear. I'm getting by just fine wearing my curated wardrobe!

2) Handwashing gets clothes surprisingly clean

and good smelling!

3) A good 10-15 minute soak in hot soapy water alone nearly cleans the clothes by itself and lessens the need for heavy-duty scrubbing. 

4) Dishwashing liquid is best for handwashing. I love using Palmolive with Oxy-ingredient. Cleans and smells great!

5) Don't be heavy-handed with the soap ... use only a squirt to clean the clothes. More soap doesn't get clothes any cleaner and requires more work to rinse out with clear water.

6) When handwashing, never let clothes pile up but wash 1 or 2 pieces daily, then hang them up to dry. I toss a couple of items into hot soapy water, take my shower and dry off, then finish the wash with a rub a dub, dub; and rinse.

7) Only squeeze the excess water out and leave it at that: The most unpleasant part of handwashing is wringing the rinse water out before hanging clothes up to dry. I find with cotton, spandex, and rayon, gravity is your friend! Clothes hung up at noon dry by the evening without squeezing every last drop of water out of the garment. It takes less squeezing than we initially think.

8) I decided against buying special equipment for daily handwashing only a few articles. You will need to get your hands wet (or use plastic gloves) ... but rubbing and swishing the clothes around the soapy water cleans as well as using washing boards, or washing stones, etc. So if these extras can't take over the manual labor, or clean better than our 2 hands, they are not worth the expense or the storage space they take up. 

If you have a salad spinner, it works to wring water out of clothes, but if not, wringing the excess water out, then letting gravity pull the rest out is fast enough.

As it turns out I'm a mean, clean machine! Moreover, my hands have never been cleaner when it matters most! And, I learned if I handwash 1 or 2 garments daily I only have to go down to the laundry room (to do bedding and towels) every few months! Since we're home all the time and not going out of the house much, plus nobody is visiting to use our bathroom towels, how dirty can they be?

So the question arises will I continue to handwash my t-shirts and socks after the worry of the pandemic ends? Hell no! After this passes, it will be too much work!😊😃


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