sweet, sweet honey, by BotheredByBees
If you work with copper, you’ve probably noticed that sometimes your pieces turn your skin green. Personally, this doesn’t really bother me that much, but I know plenty of people who are turned off from copper because of this reaction. You’ve probably also noticed that your work darkens with wear. Again, I kind of love this about copper, but it can be undesirable with certain pieces.
There’s a lot of writing out there on how to keep these chemical reactions from happening and a few people who swear that this never happens to them because of superior body chemistry (guess what? You get a cookie. Now leave the rest of us chemically inferior people alone to find ways to help ourselves). So far I haven’t found the silver bullet cure-all for this, but I’ve found a few remedies that work.
- Turtle wax (yes, the stuff you put on your car).
Wipe it on, wait a few minutes for it to dry, then buff. I’ve had moderate success with this method, but I was turned off by my jewelry smelling like a car wash. - Clear nail polish.
This wasn’t a good solution for me. The nail polish flaked off, it yellowed, and it just didn’t look very attractive. I can see how this would be an attractive “quick fix” for the person in a bind, but this really isn’t a long term solution. - Floor wax
Future floor wax is one of those treatments that gets a lot of lip service in the diy community. It works all right, but it’s in the same category as turtle wax in my book. - Home remedies
Some of these are really unique, but the one I really love and am currently trying is from Tim McCreight. I cleaned one of the many baby food jars we have knocking around the house and melted beeswax in it. Then I added safflower oil, while stirring, and just a little bit of jasmine oil, just for the heck of it. Now, McCreight says to use turpentine, but I figured that since safflower oil has polymerization qualities to it, it would work as well. The upside to this one is that it’s multipurpose. It’s a jewelry protectant, a shoe polish, a furniture polish, and it’s all natural. No nasty chemicals, easy to make and easy to apply. I just take a small rag, wipe it on the piece and buff it after a few minutes. Beeswax isn’t the cheapest stuff in the world, but if you have a local apiary (bee farm), you may be able to buy some fresh stuff off of them. A litle bit goes a long way.