De-Tarnish Your Silverware Without Polishing It

Salt is a gentle exfoliator and, therefore, will not harm delicate metals such as silver and copper, making it the perfect tool to remove tarnish from silverware. To do this, boil some water and place some aluminum foil at the bottom. Add two tablespoons each of baking soda and salt and submerge your silverware in this solution, making sure to leave some space between each item. After 2-5 minutes, remove the silverware and rinse them. The tarnish should have disappeared!

When the silverware is in the water, all the substances in there combined create a chemical reaction called ion exchange which converts tarnish back to silver. The sulfide becomes aluminum sulfide on the foil, and so you do not need to polish any of the items.