Cleaning Copper the Natural Way

Copper can get dark colored and tarnished with time. If you have copper pans or other possessions made of copper you will notice that with time they will change in color and shine. The elements will corrode copper. Water will do a number on copper items. Humidity will take away coppers patina. Copper can tarnish from being in the atmosphere. There is a easy way to clean copper up to its original glamour in a natural way with no chemicals that can be harmful to you or the copper.

All you need to make copper shine to it's original brilliance is a lemon and some salt. The acid in the lemon has a reaction with the copper to get rid of the tarnish. The salt has a very mild cleanser action on the tarnished copper item.

To clean up the copper item first of all you should wash the copper item to get off any excess dirt. Take a lemon and cut the lemon in half. Pour some salt into a shallow dish. You should pour in enough salt to have a half inch of salt covering the bottom of the dish. Take the lemon half and dip it into the dish of salt so that the cut off end of the lemon is in the salt. After you pull the lemon half back out of the salt take a look to see that the lemon is covered with the salt.

Take the salted lemon and rub it onto the copper item. Rub the lemon in tiny circles and you can see it start to work on the tarnish. The lemon should be safely taking away the tarnish. Occasionally dip the lemon into the salt every so often and continue to rub in tiny circles until the spot you are rubbing gets clean. Then move on to another spot and rub the copper item.

When you have rubbed the copper item with the lemon all over and it is looking good then rinse the copper item well and see if you missed any spots. If you have missed some spots you can touch those spots up with the salted lemon. If the first half of lemon gets worn out you can use the second half of lemon. You may have to use another lemon for larger projects.

After you are done cleaning the copper with the salt and lemon wash the copper item well and rinse the item well. Dry the copper item with a soft clean towel. Make sure the copper item is well dried.