In my jewelry making business, I find that my sterling silver ear wires will tarnish if I don’t keep them tightly closed up in plastic bags. When I change out earrings at the three stores that sell them for me, I regularly have to remove tarnished sterling silver earrings that have not sold, bring them home, and remove the tarnish.
Since these ear wires and findings are small and delicate, there is no way your typical paste metal cleaners would work, so several years ago I started buying a cleaning cloth for my silver. Some are better than others.
Last week I was shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond, and noticed they carry one of these styles of cleaning cloths, it’s called Goddard’s Long Shine Silver & Jewelry Polishing Cloth. It claims to beautify and protect the finest silver, silver plate and gold. The picture on the box shows several objects that have been cleaned with this cloth; a candlestick, flatware, and jewelry.
The logo on the top of the box says that Goddard’s has been in existence since 1839, and that they have a “heritage built on superior care”.
Description of Goddard’s Silver & Jewelry Polishing Cloth
As stated, this cloth comes in a silver colored box, and the cloth itself is a aqua color, and measures 17 1/2 inches by 13 inches. The edges are cut with a pinking shears, because the material does look like it might ravel. It’s a very soft cloth, resembling a feel like cotton flannel, and it has a very slight scent to it, but only noticeable if you actually smell it up close.
The cloth is 100% English cotton, and is said to be of high quality. In order for it to remove tarnish, it is impregnated with Goddard’s exclusive cleaning, polishing and anti-tarnish agents. It claims to polish to a “brilliant shine”, and also states that you can use this cloth for dusting as well as polishing.
How To Use
Directions are simple, wipe the surface to be cleaned with the cloth, then buff with Goddard’s Long Shine Cloth to give the product it’s shine. It claims to not only remove the tarnish, but to leave a protective barrier to protect and guard the item from further tarnish.
Care
This cloth cannot be washed with detergent, doing so will remove the cleaner and reduce the effectiveness of the cloth.
Effectiveness
I also own several yellow colored cloths that are also meant to remove tarnish from jewelry and silver, and I have to say they work better than this Goddard’s brand. Goddard’s does remove tarnish, but in comparing this to my other cloth, the fibers in the Goddard’s don’t seem to be woven as tightly, and the top soft material on the cloth actually has come off and onto my jewelry. Looking at the cloth now, I can pick off small pills of blue, as if the cloth were shedding. That has never happened with the other brand of silver cloths I own.
From my experience, I would recommend Goddard’s Silver & Jewelry Polishing Cloth for people who want to clean bigger items like candlesticks, silver bowls, or other large pieces of silver. It just has not worked as effectively on my small pieces of jewelry and ear wires.
The size is very generous, so this would work well in cleaning any silver serving pieces or candlesticks, and it did shine up some gold candlesticks I own, so I can recommend it for that purpose. However, I purchased it solely for cleaning jewelry. On the bright side, it did clean up my silver necklace chains quite nicely, but again, I experienced the material started to shed a bit, like flannel would when it meets any kind of friction. Now, the box does say to wipe “gently”, so maybe I was applying too much pressure.
As it stands right now, I am planning on returning this to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a refund of my purchase price of $8.99, which was a little more than I usually spend for this kind of product.
