Removing Silver Tarnish: How Pinterest Sometimes Sort-of Lies

I saw a pin on Pinterest many months ago that I knew I had to try out: A how-to on removing tarnish from your silver all at once.

Here's the how-to photo:

And the instructions:

De-tarnish ALL your silver ALL at once... line your sink with aluminum foil, add 1/2 c table salt, 1/2 c. baking soda, fill with hot water, then dump in all your silver! Let sit for about 30 min. The tarnish all transfers to the foil!

Sounds amazing, doesn't it? Yes, I thought so, too.

That's why when I noticed this on my kitchen counter top, I knew I had to give that pin a try:

I lined my sink with aluminum foil:

I added 1/2 cup table salt:

And 1/2 cup baking soda:

And I filled with water. About 2 minutes later, I realized that I should have put the stopper in the sink before lining with foil, adding salt and baking soda because the water was draining out as fast I as added it.

Oops.

So I started over - stopper, foil, salt, baking soda, hot water. Check, check, check, check, check.

Then I dumped in my silver basket, let it sit for 30 minutes and waited to see what happened.

The truth is - nothing much happened, except for now having a very soggy silver bowl. I didn't really see any tarnish transferred to my foil.

The tarnish did rub off fairly easily when I buffed it with a clean towel. But let me be clear: I really had to buff that baby.

Which made me stop and think - Don't you have to buff your silver with silver polish to remove tarnish?

Which then made me think - How is this any easier than simply using silver polish?!?

You be the judge. Here's my "final" product:

Fair enough, I got tired of buffing. That may be because it was very tarnished (nee black?), or it may be because I decided to try this pin out while I was suffering from the debilitating effects of a stomach virus. Either way, buffing got old after about .2 seconds.

Here's a side-by-side in case you can't tell the difference:

Still can't tell much of a difference? Me either.