I asked this question as part of a two-parter, but no one responded to this part, so I'm posting it alone.I found a page online that said to use a paste of salt and lemon juice to polish copper and then wash it off right away with soap and water, so I polished a copper bracelet this way. However, large areas of the bracelet turned a white/rainbowish color, and I need to know WHY. Did I do something wrong? I thought oxidation was always black or green. Is that not true?Please do not just post your own copper polishing methods, unless it is accompanied by the reason why I now have a piece of metal which is now part both copper and whitish/rainbowish, since THAT is what I want to know. Thanks!
I don't know why your copper bracelet was discolored, but I may be able to help you 'return it' to the 'natural shiny copper' you want. Buy a small bottle of ketchup ... pour it into a bowl just larger than your bracelet. Put the bracelet into the ketchup COMPLETELY and LEAVE IT THERE for an hour or two. Take it out, rinse it in 'cool water' and buff. I know ... but ketchup is the BEST copper cleaner I have ever seen ... I used to use it to polish the copper pass bar in a restaurant when I was being a waitress. Gee, I don't EAT ketchup ... I wonder why? It could be that the 'paste' you made was 'more' than just PLAIN salt and lemon juice (fresh squeezed from a real lemon, not taken from a bottle) and that chemical that was 'extra' caused the 'discoloration' of your bracelet. It also could be something in the 'soap' you used after.
The nearest thing I could find to white residue on copper indicated that it was a residue of the cleaning agent. I would either rinse it again and dry completely, or try another method of cleaning. The ketchup sounds interesting and inexpensive. They sell copper cleaner at the grocery. Probably no better than lemon and salt... probably just cream of tartar and salt in fact. Good luck!
I rather have an identical difficulty,I used to apply point 40 bleach. yet i recently switched because of the fact is somewhat time ingesting and undesirable on your hair. I switched to Revlon colour silk alluring colour-05-extremely mild ash blond. yet I go away it on for 60 minutes somewhat of 25. yet i could recommend you utilize pink shampoo(that's made to get the brassy/copper tones out of hair) yet im unsure what that's reported as. that's slightly costly in spite of the undeniable fact that. Or bleach it with point 40 bleach. It labored for me.
This may have to do with how the bracelt was made. Pure copper is quite malleable and would probably not be suitable for a bracelet ( it would bend and break easily). So there is likely some alloy mixed with the copper and if this bracelet was copper plated and heavily corroded then some of that alloy may have been exposed to the VERY acidic lemon juice causing an undesireable reaction producing the whitish material. Copper oxides are green and sometimes black. Copper Cu Salt NaCl Lemon juice (citric acid) C6H8O7 (heavy acid) its likely that some of the copper dissolved into an aqueous solution to form copper chlorides and wont be returning to the bracelet anytime soon. I.e. your not going to get that part of the bracelet back.....ever. Hope this explains WHY
