How to clean gold with hydrogen peroxide at home: is it possible, recipes for solutions

Good afternoon, reader!

In today's episode we'll talk about how to give jewelry its original look. Namely, how to clean gold with hydrogen peroxide yourself.

Gold is a noble metal of yellow color, soft, but heavy due to its high density. Due to its thermodynamic properties, it is used in the creation of jewelry. The high plasticity of gold allows you to create openwork patterns; the metal is drawn into the thinnest wire.

Improved physical properties are achieved in an alloy that contains other alloying elements: copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc, silver, palladium. Gold is responsible for corrosion resistance, beauty and elegance. Impurities give characteristic shades from pink to green, copper - red.

Causes of gold contamination

Pure gold does not oxidize. In jewelry it is used only as an alloy with other metals. This way the product becomes much stronger mechanically, but more vulnerable and unstable to alkalis and acids.

The aggressive environment of household chemicals, cosmetics, dust, sweat - this is a list of possible polluters. Under the influence of these natural reagents, gold items become dull and lose their shining original appearance, and darkening appears in some places. Scratches are possible during wear.

In the workshop, the jeweler will professionally clean the item and present a polished piece without scratches. But what should those who do not have such a master and extra funds for jewelry services do?

Let's reveal the secret. There are a number of products available at home, thanks to which you can clean yourself, ridding gold items of dirt and plaque. One of them is hydrogen peroxide.

Professional gold cleaning

Today, many jewelry centers, private craftsmen and companies specializing in cleaning accessories offer professional cleaning services for gold jewelry. This procedure has both pros and cons. Among the advantages it is worth noting:

The craftsmen have special equipment that allows them to thoroughly clean even the most inaccessible corners and recesses of the jewelry (for example, small brushes, ultrasonic devices);
professional cleaning products that make cleaning even more effective - after the cleaning procedure from a good master, the jewelry looks, if not better than on the day of purchase, then at least the same;
the ability to clean even the most stubborn stains;
no need to spend time and effort on thorough cleaning.

This procedure also has its disadvantages:

the cost of professional cleaning is usually higher than the cost of a special product for home use and, especially, folk remedies;
there is a risk of choosing an unqualified craftsman or even a fraudster (especially in small towns). To avoid this, when choosing a center, rely on reviews from other clients and pay attention to large chains;
For minor stains and light plaque, the cost of the procedure is not justified.

Professional gold cleaning is more effective than home cleaning (of course, if you contact a good master)

Many jewelry stores offer free cleaning promotions - try looking for similar offers in your city.

Average prices for professional cleaning

The cost of such a service as professional cleaning of gold jewelry depends on the region. Of course, in the capital, prices for cleaning products will be significantly higher than outside the Moscow Ring Road. The approximate cost of cleaning gold jewelry without inserts in an ultrasonic bath will be:

Moscow - from 300 rubles;
St. Petersburg - from 250 rubles;
regions - 150 rubles.

If you want to clean a product with an insert, prices will be slightly higher:

Moscow - from 350 rubles;
St. Petersburg - from 350 rubles;
regions - from 250 rubles.

The price for cleaning matte gold is approximately as follows:

Moscow - from 350 rubles;
St. Petersburg - from 300 rubles;
regions - from 300 rubles.

Is it possible to clean gold with hydrogen peroxide?

You can clean gold at home using different methods. The king of home cleaning products is hydrogen peroxide. When choosing this method, you should know: peroxide is almost always used in combination with an ammonia solution (ammonia) or soap solution.

Mechanism of action of antiseptic

The mechanism of action of the cleaning solution is the interaction of hydrogen peroxide with an ammonia solution, during which a chemical reaction with the formation of peroxide causes an antiseptic property, removing dust, dirt, sweat and other bactericidal microflora. The product regains its shine and clean, even shade.

Will such cleaning do any harm?

It is not for nothing that gold is classified as a noble metal. Its advantages include not only its attractive appearance and high price, but also its strength and resistance to solvents. It is quite difficult to spoil gold items. Of course, if you act within reason. Stick to the recipe and observe the dosages, and then you will not risk damage to your jewelry.

Let us remind you: pure gold is a soft, ductile, but at the same time dense and heavy metal. 100% gold can only be found in bars. And in jewelry there is 38-75% gold (385 standard - 38%, 585 standard - 58%, 750 - 75%, etc.).

List of contraindications

Hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, ammonia and most other home remedies are safe for gold. But you need to take into account that the products may contain stones and glue, which dissolve in an aggressive environment and deteriorate. It is not recommended to clean with home remedies:

Jewelry with adhesive setting. Stones of complex shapes, as well as amber and pearls, are often glued. Such decorations should not be immersed in water or liquid solutions.
Jewelry with organic inserts and soft stones: pearls, amber, coral, malachite, turquoise. They are very sensitive to various influences and to hydrogen peroxide in particular. Jewelry with the listed stones can be cleaned either by a specialist or at home with alcohol diluted in half with water.

Gold jewelry with sapphires, emeralds, quartz, aquamarine, topaz, beryl and other hard stones can be cleaned with peroxide and ammonia. As well as irradiated gold, matte, white.

Gold below 585 contains 50% or more different alloys, so it reacts more easily with strong oxidizing agents and alkalis. But it is stronger and practically not subject to deformation and scratches.

Cautions

Before cleaning gold items at home, you should familiarize yourself with a number of rules.

To prevent your jewelry from getting damaged:

Use only soft materials and brushes. Of course, something tough and hard will clean your jewelry faster. But then there is a risk of leaving scratches on the product. They may not be visible to the naked eye, but if you look at the reflections through a magnifying glass, the gold will appear dotted with thin stripes and depressions.
Avoid abrasive cleaning products. Powders and gels with hard particles also leave marks on the gold. After such cleaning, the gold can only be restored by polishing by a master.
Do not use bleach or other aggressive substances. They can lead to loss of shine and stains on the product. Gold itself is resistant to most oxidizing agents and solvents, but additives in the form of silver, nickel, palladium, and copper are not.
Use only glass and ceramic dishes. Metal containers will participate in a chemical reaction, but we don’t need that.
Do not clean items of different samples, white and yellow, red gold, silver, in the same container. This may cause color changes.
Prepare your jewelry for cleaning. Remove pendants from chains and sort different types of gold and items with different types of stones.

We recommend: How to clean silverware and jewelry at home

Advantages and disadvantages of peroxide

The advantages of this method are the availability, low cost of hydrogen peroxide and other products used with it, and a minimum of time spent. Both drugs are available without a prescription in pharmacies. Cleaning time is minimal. Before a dinner party, theatrical performance or other celebration, it is enough to dilute these two components with water and after 15-20 minutes, while you are getting dressed, the jewelry will shine like new.

The disadvantage of this cleaning method is the lack of versatility. The fact is that this method is unacceptable if there are precious stones in the jewelry. This type of cleaning medium is not suitable for them due to its aggressiveness.

Which samples can withstand this treatment?

This cleaning method is suitable for all precious metal samples.

Important: The product sample indicates the gold content in the alloy and is controlled at the state level. The higher the standard of gold jewelry, the higher its vulnerability to damage.

5 samples are considered generally accepted in Russia:

375 (Au 38%)
500 (50.5% gold)
585 (58,5%)
750 (75,5%)
958 (96,6%)

999 - pure gold, hallmark for bullion. In the country's jewelry industry, there are products of 583, 900 and 916 samples, as evidenced by the stamp on the gold jewelry.

How and with what to clean a gold-plated product

To increase demand for a certain group of goods, jewelry stores now offer products not made of pure gold, but only with a small coating. Such jewelry requires special care, as scratches may appear on the surface.

Gold-plated jewelry cannot be cleaned using standard methods applied to gold. It is advisable to use a cotton pad soaked in wine alcohol or beer. You can use regular raw egg whites. An aqueous solution with a small amount of vinegar is considered a good solution. First, use a moistened cotton pad, then rinse under running water and dry in the open air.

How not to clean gold

There are many proven ways to clean gold at home. Although their effectiveness has been proven in practice, there are contraindications.

When delicately cleaning gold items with precious stones, you should refrain from using aggressive reagents. They cannot be cleaned with acids, including vinegar. Subject to mechanical impact with abrasive materials or a rough brush. Products inlaid with stones are afraid of water. Turquoise and coral do not tolerate alcohol. White gold reacts negatively to powder and toothpaste.

How to clean gold jewelry with stones

Be especially careful with such jewelry. Remember that some gemstones require special care. For example, opal, turquoise or malachite can be scratched by abrasives, so forget about tooth powder, baking soda or salt. Ruby, garnet and topaz are sensitive to high temperatures and should not be washed with hot water. And amber, pearls, coral or ivory really do not like acids, alkalis and solvents - it is better to entrust cleaning to specialists.

If you are confident in your abilities, use the following methods for cleaning gold jewelry with stones:

Alcohol . Moisten a cotton swab with an alcohol-containing liquid (strong alcohol, cologne or alcohol lotion will do). Gently wipe the jewelry to remove grease and other contaminants.
Gasoline . Dampen an unnecessary soft toothbrush with it and treat the gold item. The fine bristles are great for removing dirt from hard-to-reach places.

Cleaning Solution Recipes

Try to clean gold with the simplest and most commonly available household products: soda and salt. From them, cleaning solutions based on hydrogen peroxide are prepared, which cope with light stains. Sometimes sugar is also added there.

Peroxide with soda

To clean, you need to do a number of well-established steps:

In 200 ml. water, add 2 tablespoons of baking soda and the same amount of 3% hydrogen peroxide.
Place the decorations on the foil-lined bottom of the container you are using overnight.
Upon completion of the process, remove, rinse, dry, rub with a napkin until shiny.
A colorless lipstick will give a polishing effect.

Important: it is recommended to use a non-metallic container (glass, ceramic) for cleaning reagents.

With salt

A simple solution for cleaning precious metals, called express cleaning, is salt water.

The manipulations are really simple: dilute three tablespoons of salt in a glass of warm water. Immerse the gold jewelry and leave it overnight; In the morning, rinse and dry, polish with felt, velor or velvet. That's all. Your jewelry will shine again, shining with purity and nobility.

Store-bought jewelry cleaning products

Any jewelry store will offer you to purchase all kinds of cleaning products for cleaning gold. These can include sprays, special moistened wipes, various pastes that gently and effectively cleanse plaque and discoloration. Currently, you can purchase a device for cleaning gold using ultrasound.

Gold Cleaners

There are many jewelry cleaning products available on the market in various forms: liquid, aerosol, paste, etc.

Among the proven brands are: Talisman (Russia), HG (Netherlands), Hagerty (France). Many jewelry manufacturers have their own lines of similar cleaning products.

HG Silver and Gold Cleaner

The method of application is indicated on the labels, but in general it is approximately the same. If the composition is in the form of a liquid, then you need to lower the product into it (without touching the liquid with your hands!), hold it in this state for 3-5 minutes, then take it out, rinse thoroughly under running water and dry. If the contamination is deep, then before washing off the liquid, you can go over the decoration with a brush.

Products are dipped into a special liquid

If the composition is in the form of a spray, then it is sprayed onto the product, left for 3-4 minutes, then the decoration is cleaned with a brush, rinsed thoroughly with water and wiped with a napkin. Usually a special brush and cloth come with the spray.

The composition in the form of a paste is applied to a cloth napkin (preferably microfiber), put the decoration in it, hold for 1-2 minutes, and then polish it (through the napkin itself or using a brush), then thoroughly rinse off all residues.

Gold cleaning cloths

Special wipes for cleaning and polishing precious items, impregnated with special chemical compounds, are also sold.

Cloths for cleaning jewelry

The product is carefully, but without strong pressure, wiped with a napkin until the desired shine is achieved. If the napkin turns black and becomes covered with dirt, it will need to be replaced with a new one.

Despite the possible mistrust of the fact that a napkin can clean anything, such products often have quite high reviews.

What's the best way to clean very dirty gold?

If the jewelry is very dirty and the previous 2 methods did not help you, then it would be best to use the following solution with hydrogen peroxide.

Preparing Jewelry for Cleaning

Take off your gold jewelry and sort it into categories:

separate pendants with stones from the chain;
rings with diamonds or other precious stones;
set white gold aside from yellow gold.

This sorting is necessary because what is suitable for one subgroup is not suitable for another and vice versa.

The importance of following the recipe exactly during the cleaning process

The favorable outcome of the procedure undertaken entirely depends on pre-thought-out actions - this includes the choice of container for cleaning, the preparation of cleaning products (solution, sticks, brushes, napkins) - everything is prepared in advance and is at hand.

Observe the time of immersion in the solution, do not overexpose it - a moment that cannot be neglected.

Peroxide + ammonia

Let's consider the cleaning algorithm:

Take a glass (not metal!) of clean, boiled, warm water.
Pour 2 teaspoons of ammonia and 2 tablespoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide into it.
Thoroughly stir the contents of the glass and immerse the jewelry for 15-20 minutes.
Rinse cleaned products thoroughly.
Dry with a soft, clean cloth.
Polish with a cloth (velor will do).

By the way, you can try to do without ammonia by replacing ammonia with dishwashing detergent in the amount of 1 teaspoon.

How to clean jewelry?

You can clean precious metal with peroxide yourself. Of course, this procedure is less effective than the one offered by the jeweler, but it will help remove dirt and plaque from the surface of the jewelry.

Hydrogen peroxide

In addition to peroxide, you can use it for cleaning:

Soap or dishwashing liquid.
Powder for washing things.
Ammonia or ammonium peroxide.
Sugar, salt, soda.

You can clean jewelry with peroxide after preparing a special solution. It is not recommended to use only one element. Hydroperite in diluted form or hydrogen peroxide are sold in pharmacies; they have a bleaching effect and react with water (hissing and the release of gas in a small amount). Some time ago, women were frantically buying peroxide, wanting to turn their dark hair white.

To remove dirt and plaque from the surface of gold, it is the property of bleaching or lightening that is needed.

But first, you should prepare a solution in which you will need to immerse the jewelry. The solution contains the following components:

water in the amount of one glass (250 ml);
ammonia, one or two teaspoons;
hydrogen peroxide, 30–35 mg (it is advisable to use a 3% solution);
liquid soap, two teaspoons; If there is no soap, you can replace it with dishwashing liquid.

It is worth using non-metallic dishes for cleaning; porcelain, earthenware, ceramics and even plastic are suitable. Warm water is poured into the container and all the components are added, the solution is thoroughly mixed using a wooden spoon, and all the jewelry that needs cleaning is placed in it.

Gold cleaning

The solution should completely cover the jewelry; you should not disturb or remove jewelry from it. The procedure lasts no more than 10–15 minutes. Then the products are taken out of the solution and washed under a stream of cold water, wiped dry, and polished with suede.

The method is quite reliable, but not very popular for certain reasons. The disadvantages of such cleaning can be considered:

Low efficiency.
Cannot be used to clean jewelry with stones.
Do not use if you need to clean white gold.

The cleaning solution will not help remove dirt from hard-to-reach areas. It will be difficult to clean openwork carvings and other decorative elements from plaque.

Jewelry set with stones is not cleaned this way. Soaking may cause the stone to change color. Minerals, as well as gemstones, react differently to humidity.

White gold is an alloy of several metals; the material itself is capricious, so it is best to clean it in a workshop.

There are several more methods that will help remove dirt, plaque and even oxides from the surface of jewelry:

The easiest and safest way is to wash the item in a soap solution; you can prepare a concentrated product, or you can simply open the tap and wash the jewelry under hot water.
Salt and sugar are suitable for cleaning jewelry. Sugar or salt in high concentration is added to hot water, after which the jewelry is placed in the water. It is better to leave the product in the solution for the whole night, and then rinse with water and wipe with suede.
There is another method - boiling, but it is considered dangerous: not all decorations tolerate increased temperatures well. If the product is inlaid with stones, then you should not boil it; at high temperatures, the stone may darken or even fall out. You need to boil the decorations in clean water, using a metal container, with foil placed on the bottom of the container. Dishwashing detergent is added to the water, then the items are placed and boiled for 15–20 minutes.

If there is a danger of harming the product, then you should refuse to carry out the procedure at home and contact a jeweler.

After each cleaning, the product should be wiped with a dry, soft, lint-free cloth. Be sure to rinse under water, since the reagents can interact with the metal after the procedure is completed. Such contact can lead to the surface of the product being damaged and stains and marks appearing on the jewelry. It will be difficult to get rid of them.

Baking soda and tooth powder are two more ingredients that can be used in the procedure. But they should only be used if there is no fear of damaging the jewelry or scratching its surface. Tooth powder can be replaced with paste, and it is better not to use soda at all unless absolutely necessary.

And one more simple tip: any solution that is intended for cleaning items made of precious metals can be strengthened with soap or dishwashing liquid. If you don’t have anything like that on hand, then laundry detergent is also suitable. But first it should be completely dissolved in hot water so that no grains remain.

Polishing is another important stage; precious metals are polished exclusively with suede or cloth. The fabric must be clean and dry. If you polish your jewelry regularly, they won't need cleaning.

Other cleaning methods

If the above recipes with peroxide helped, but hard-to-reach places in the form of openwork weaves of precious metal remain untouched, then mechanical work cannot be done without.

Mechanical

For hard-to-reach places on jewelry, mechanical cleaning is used. The surest way is to use toothpicks, which you will have to dip in the cleaning solution. If necessary, wrap a small cotton swab around the tip of the toothpick.

The most effective thing here is not hydrogen peroxide, but a universal paste, which includes laundry soap, chalk, petroleum jelly, and tooth powder. These components are mixed with water until smooth. Apply a thick mixture to the product with a soft cloth and wipe off. The final stages of cleaning are standard washing and drying. In this way complete triumph is achieved.

How to clean gold quickly and effectively at home?

Traditional methods of cleaning gold have been around for centuries, but most of them do more harm than good. Let's look at the least dangerous methods for jewelry:

Hydrogen peroxide solution - a tablespoon per glass of filtered water. To be on the safe side, you can add a drop of liquid soap. Soak the gold item for 5 hours, remove it, rinse it with a stream of cold water and dry it on a cloth.
Apple cider vinegar 9% - similar soaking, but for 15 minutes maximum. Strictly for red or yellow metal.
Toothpaste must have a gel consistency without a whitening effect, activated carbon granules, or other abrasive particles. Clean with a soft brush and rinse with water.

Important: You can clean gold with citric acid only if it is very dark; keeping the product in such a solution for more than 5 minutes is not recommended.

Rules for wearing, caring for and storing gold jewelry

Delicate care of precious metal products will extend their service life. You should wear gold items carefully, do not expose them to mechanical stress, remove jewelry at night, periodically clean it, and store it in a special wooden case or box.

We hope that our recipes with hydrogen peroxide have helped you and brought additional knowledge to your treasury of worldly wisdom. In order not to miss all the most important things, subscribe to our articles. Don't forget to share useful information on social networks with your friends. See you soon!

Tips before using peroxide

Do not be overzealous when rubbing the surface when cleaning semi-precious items . This is especially true in cases where peroxide with a resistance rating of more than 7% is used. These actions will entail a number of consequences:

Changing the shade of the coating.
The appearance of oxidation on damaged areas (scratches).
Erasing engraving.
Loss of clarity of cut and brilliance of stones.

Also, do not forget about the possible presence of rhodium in gold jewelry . If it is present in the product (which you need to find out when purchasing), then you should completely avoid using alcohol or strong peroxide when cleaning jewelry of this kind.

When caring for gold, you should not use sponges, brushes with synthetic bristles or toothbrushes . Tools of this type negatively affect the gold surface, namely, they erase the protective layer and, accordingly, scratch the metal. It is best to replace them with cotton wool, soft napkins, and so on.