Natural Way To Clean Silver

Today I received silverware that has been passed down from my husband's family. It is beautiful silver but it needed a good polishing. Since I have not previously owned silver, I didn't have any tarnish remover, which got me to start thinking about what I needed to buy. The more I thought about it I knew I didn't feel comfortable using a tarnish remover because of the chemicals it would contain, so I started searching online for a natural way to clean silver. I found out that you can clean silver and remove the tarnish by using tin foil, baking soda and salt. I saw this formula recommended a couple of times on different sites (plus I already had everything I needed) so I gave this "recipe" a try. I placed a piece of tin foil down on the bottom of a skillet, filled it with a few inches of water, added a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of baking soda and brought it to a boil. Once the mixture came to a boil, I added the silverware and let it boil for about 4 minutes. Then I just rinsed and dried the silverware. It came out great and was a lot less smelly then I remember those tarnish removers being. I also read that if you place a piece of white chalk in the drawer or box where your silverware is stored it will keep it from tarnishing. This was so easy and I felt much more at ease cleaning it this way then using some chemical on something we would be eating off of.