Did I ruin it? Mystery white residue after cleaning sterling silverware...

[gwlambert]

While trying to untarnish my silverware, with a tip all over the internet, I'm afraid I have ruined it. Can anyone tell me what may have happened?

Basically, I placed aluminum foil in a skillet, added water, 1 c of baking soda, and a little salt. Since everyone stressed it only works with extremely hot water, I had the idea of using a skillet in the stove to keep in the water hot. (Especially for as many pieces I had to polish)

It worked great at first, I added some more water and baking soda after several pieces and put another piece of foil in. I stopped once I realized that it was causing a large white powdery buildup on my cooktop (as if it was all corroded, but luckily, it chipped and rinsed off), but now my pan seems to be ruined and some of the silverware has a dull white residue like stain on them. (It didn't occur to me that the nonstick skillet could have had an effect too. Was the skillet the culprit? By chance do you know what reaction caused the white residue and if there is anything I can do to restore the pan and silver pieces?)

[#2]

I had the exact same thing happen to my ring I just polished, I just polished my sterling silver 925 ring from pandora and now it has the same cloudy residue on it and I tried scrubbing it with the scratchy side of a sponge but it hasn’t helped.. however I didn’t use that method, I used the Connoisseurs silver cleaner, have you found out anything that can help restore it?? It’s a promise ring and I really love it and I feel like I discolored it

[JER]

No matter what they show on youtube NEVER do the baking soda and Al thing with sterling.  You need a professional buffing to fix this.   It is worse with plate where one might cause green corrosion to blossom out of base metal.