How to Keep Costume Jewelry From Tarnishing

Many people want to wear jewelry, but can’t see spending the prices for “the good stuff”—real gold and silver. But dime-store-quality jewelry will leave green or black marks on your skin after a short honeymoon. The rate at which things tarnish will vary depending on your body chemistry: how acidic or basic it is and how much you sweat.

To prevent tarnishing on this kind of cheap jewelry, you can either coat the parts of the jewelry that are next to the skin with nail polish or spray the whole piece with clear paint, as I explain in detail below.

1. These tricks are not likely to work with pieces that mix metal with string, beads, and jewels. They may even permanently ruin your piece. For complicated pieces that incorporate stones or unusual types of metal, I have no good advice for you.

2. If you have an heirloom piece of jewelry, or an expensive piece, do NOT follow the procedure I’m giving you here! Instead, take your piece to a professional jeweler at a reputable store and ask them to restore it for you. Those of you who watch Antiques Roadshow on TV will already be aware that any attempts at restoring an old piece, if it's truly valuable and not just a nostalgic item, will ruin its value for collectors.

Here is an example of what copper looks like at various stages of oxidation (tarnishing). The change in color is called a "patina" by artists. Note that the newest penny appears at about 8 o'clock, whereas the oldest most-tarnished penny appears at about 7 o'clock on the circle (as if the circle represented a clock).

For example, I got a pure copper bracelet at an art show, and knew that it would soon look like a copper penny—which I liked, but I knew it would also leave marks on my wrist. My solution was to use clear, hard-topcoat nail polish on the inside of the bracelet only. I put two coats of nail polish on, because I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed any spots or that it would wear off too quickly. I wear this bracelet often and haven’t had a “green” wrist since then. It’s gradually aging gracefully on the outside.

Another solution to this would have been better if I had wanted the bracelet to remain shining like a new penny. I would have used a piece of string to suspend the bracelet inside a cardboard box "spray booth," and spray-painted the whole thing with clear paint, working outdoors on a calm, warm day, and following all precautions and directions on the paint can. After the bracelet had dried, I would have flipped it over and tied the other end with the string and sprayed the whole bracelet again, turning it as I went along. This would have kept the entire bracelet a shiny copper color until the paint layers wore off.

This method would work similarly for rings, earrings (especially earring posts and hooks), and necklaces made out of copper, bronze, brass, or inexpensive metal coated with a thin layer of gold or silver.

Furthermore, you can take a simple but tarnished piece, polish it, and then apply nail polish or spray lacquer paint and it will look like new. Keep a close eye out at garage sales: most people will sell “old” tarnished jewelry, not realizing that they can polish it and it will look like new again—and stay looking new if it’s coated with nail polish or clear spray lacquer. You can afford to be more adventuresome with garage-sale jewelry because you can buy a piece similar to one that you want to rejuvenate, try the process out on the garage-sale piece, then if the results are acceptable you can try it with your own piece of jewelry.

A note about stones: don’t clear-coat pieces with gemstones in them, or if you do, cover the gemstone so that it doesn’t get coated. The results with gemstones, beads, and string are generally not good.