{renovate} copper cups

Welcome, Houzz readers! If this is your first time visiting my site, you can read a little bit about me here. I hope you look around and decide to stay a while! By way of a quick introduction, here are a few of my projects you might enjoy:
Kitchen remodel
Back entry remodel
Striped hallway


Last month, you might remember, we went to a big antique show and brought home a set of copper cups.

Since then, I've been using them around the house in flower arrangements. But, we actually bought them to drink out of, so I had to get to work cleaning them. You can see, above, that they were really tarnished. Let's take a closer look:

YEARS of built up tarnish. While it gives it a great 'antique' look, that might not be what we're going for when drinking out of them:

I knew for sure I wanted to de-tarnish the insides, but then possibly the outsides.

Here are my weapons of choice:

I had both of these laying around because of the copper counters and a couple copper pans we have. My original thought was that I would compare the two. But I quickly learned they have two different functions! Wenol didn't cut through the thick tarnish, so I first needed to go to work on the tarnish with Copper Glo. But once I'd cut through the tarnish, Wenol really shines up the copper and makes it purty.  So I cleaned all the insides (no pictures, but trust me - kinda messy, not that exciting :) and then had to decide about the outsides. And here's the thing friends, I actually like the outsides all sparkly and coppery. The issue? Chris likes them better tarnished.

We have a divided household. :) For now, half are clean and sparkly and half are tarnished and antiqued.

The antiqued ones are great for flowers.

But for some reason I am more comfortable drinking out of the clean and sparkly ones.

What do you guys think? After I finished with the copper glo/wenol combo, I washed them all with soap and water. Is it safe to drink out of cups so tarnished? Is tarnish bad for you? Which look do you like better? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the great copper debate 2013 :)

ps. I wasn't paid to review these two products, I just wanted to fill you in on what I use!