Care and cleaning of ChainMaille 

Traditional wisdom tells us that the way to clean chainmail is to have your squire carry it up a small hill, place the chain in a barrel half filled with clean sand and roll it down.

For most of us that won't work because we don't have a squire!

Fortunately I have cleverly designed my bronze alloy for easy cleaning.

Washing varies slightly between the polished bronze and any plated item. Anything white is plated (antimony) and most of our gold tone fashion accessories are in fact gold plated (depending on the item our plating specs. range from 10mils to 50mils of 23karat gold).
These items only require a lite washing with any shampoo or dish washing detergent. You only need to remove buildups of dust and body oils.

Solid bronze items require a little more effort to keep them looking like gold. SunLight hand dish washing detergent is by far the best I have found. Dawn or Ivory work to a lesser degree.

1. Take your chainMaille and hold it in your hands,
2. run a small amount of hot water over it
3. pour SunLight hand dressing detergent with lemon liberally over the ChainMaille
4. agitate the maille by rubbing your hands in a circular motion (calling it a wimp might get it angry and worked into a lather)
5. add splashes of water and agitate until the maille is covered with suds like a shave cream
6. rinse thoroughly with running water and finish with a dunk.
7. towel dry. don't put in plastic until it has had time to dry completely or it could tarnish big time.

If you have a lot of ChainMaille I would recommend buying a rock tumbler. Use Sunlight as above or you can use the burnishing solution that I use. (from Rio Grande Co. Abq NM) ether way it will probably get the brightest this way.

I hope the Images below will serve to clarify my words.

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see side by side comparison before and after