the Silver cleaner you can buy has a lot of chemical stuff in it
and you shouldn't use it with stones, pearls, amber and such
because it could damage them. Toothpaste is just so much
"healthier" and cheaper and better smelling and (my main reason to
use it) it doesn't irritate your skin.
Edith,
the vast majority of stones and metals will not be harmed by
anything in silver cleaner. Even pearls and amber, which do need
some care, will be OK if you don’t soak too long. Amber needs to
avoid ammonia and heat, while pearls need to avoid acids.
By contrast, tooth paste often contains abrasives. Mild ones, but
abrasives none the less. Hard stones don’t mind, but you can take
the polish off of amber, and certainly take the polish off of silver,
with many tooth pastes. if you use the clear gel types, which may
have less abrasive natures, you might be OK. But still, toothpaste
is generally NOT a good idea with jewelry, at least not if it’s got
any sort of high polish anywhere. Now, once silver jewelry has been
worn a while, it may not have any high polish left, so perhaps
you’re doing no harm. But please don’t consider toothpaste as
totally benign. This may be especially true with gold jewelry. The
areas inside and under a stone setting, for example, were likely
polished before the stone was set, and, being protected from
abrasion, might get dirty, but will retain their polish once
correctly cleaned. If a customer digs out the dirt in their diamond
ring with toothpaste and a toothbrush, those nicely polished areas
around their diamonds can end up dulled significantly.
The notion that silver cleaner has lots of “chemicals” and is
therefore somehow bad, is unfortunate. EVERYTHING has chemicals,
including the most organic and natural foods. What’s important is
which ones. Toothpaste is also full of chemicals. They happen to be
ones deemed safe in the mouth, but chemicals even so. There are a
number of different types of silver cleaners. Not all are
particularly irritating. The dip type tarnish removers such as
Tarnex contain mostly just thiourea, not lots of chemicals. But that
one is irritating, certainly, and the item needs to be well rinsed
afterward. But it leaves no film or residue, so rinsing should solve
any problems. In use, rubber kitchen gloves will prevent any
problems during cleaning itself. And that one is the most problematic
of the silver cleaners. Even simpler is the home method of washing
soda and aluminum, which has similar results but no irritation, at
least no more than any simple laundry detergent. . Semichrome paste
polish is formulated just for polishing metal, and leaves a high
polish when you’re done, without any especially irritating
ingredients. And the non-rouge (often yellow or gray) colored
polishing cloths also contain little that could be irritating at all,
yet do a nice job with the metal
HTH
Peter Rowe