Spit & Polish

One of the chores that I have never minded doing is polishing the silver. As a child, we would polish the silver before holiday dinners and my parents’ dinner parties. It was one of those instant gratification chores – you could see your success immediately! Luckily, I still like polishing silver, because I have quite a collection – especially in the pearl-handled flatware – which all needed to be cleaned up before sale.

In the comments section of my last post, someone asked what I used to polish my silverware. After years of using Wright’s Silver Cream, they have gone and changed their name and are now Weiman. Then my life got dramatically easier when I discovered that they make silver wipes. I never though that the pitiful little sponge included in the tub of polish was substantial enough and usually fell apart before I’d finished all the polish.These Weiman Silver Wipes are amazing!  They’re really strong and don’t fall apart, no matter how much I rub and scrub. If I only need to spot polish something, I put the used piece into a baggie and use it the next time.

I thought I’d show you how well they work. Bad me! I hadn’t polished this gorgeous teapot for a while. With all of our humidity recently, it was really beginning to tarnish quickly and I can’t stand that.

After a few swipes with the cloth, it really started cleaning up nicely!

Then I finished polishing the whole thing, including all of the pieces.

This piece is pretty amazing. It’s a teapot on a stand with a spirit burner, which in itself is quite amazing!

The wick raises and lowers, and when you turn a screw, a little piece comes over and extinguishes the flame. And there are two clips to keep the pot on the stand when you’re transporting it.

You can see how nicely this polished up, and I only used one of the cloths!

The thing about silver is that the more you use it, the less you have to polish it. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ever consider using one of those dips that claim to remove all of the tarnish instantly. They also remove every single bit of patina on the piece!  This set of Mappin & Webb mother of pearl-handled cutlery took a lot of silver polish and elbow grease to clean. If I’d dipped it, it would look flat and grey. No depth at all.

Do you polish your silver? If so, what do you use or recommend?