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How To Polish Silver with Ketchup

Ashley Poskin
Ashley Poskin
Ashley traded the quiet life of a small town in a big house for the hustle and bustle of the Windy City. On any given day you might find her working on a freelance photo or blogging gig, wrangling her little darling, or walking Chuck the boxer.
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updated Jun 5, 2019
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Its delicious on french fries, but can you clean with ketchup, too? We gathered a few pieces of tarnished silver to see if this diner staple could pull double duty and make the job of polishing silver just a bit easier.

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Word on the street is that the acid in the tomatoes reacts with the oxidizing of the tarnished silver in just three simple steps. We tried this with our old souvenir spoons and the results were… well, lets just say this is not our preferred method of polishing silver! There was very little change.

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Instructions:

  1. Pour ketchup into a dish.
  2. Place your silver piece into the ketchup, making sure its totally submerged. Let the silver sit in the ketchup for 5-10 minutes.
  3. Remove silver piece from the bowl, rinse with warm water and buff dry with a rag.

More great tips and tutorials: Cleaning Basics

Edited from original post by Jen DeRose August 29, 2008

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Cleaning