I want to laquer cheap jewelry and protect against tarnishing

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a cheap necklace made of lots of “silver” rings and made the mistake of wearing it while having sunscreen on my skin. After just a few hours I could see that there is going to be a problem with tarnishing. I’ve looked around online for ideas for protecting this so that I can at least get a few months wear out of it. I’ve seen suggestions to paint with clear nail polish, but with all these rings, I feel like that will be difficult. I’ve seen suggestions to spray with clear gloss spray paint, but I’m not so sure about the safety of that (or nail polish, for that matter!). Someone also suggested this but the safety sheet they provide is long, which makes me think it’s not necessarily safe either, but at the very least it’s recommended for use on musical instruments which at least have a moderate amount of skin contact. Since I’ve never seen a safety sheet for clear gloss spray paint, I have no idea how they would compare.

Any thoughts on (or warnings against) the usage of this spray (or clear gloss spray paint) on a necklace?

2

Silver tarnishes. Cheaper white mystery metal doesn’t–but there can be problems with the finish. Beyond cleaning it, I wouldn’t spend time & money fiddling with the stuff.

Look into stainless steel jewelry. Some of it is quite pretty & it stands up to anything.

3

I was going to recommend the nail polish route. I make (and wear) items made from silver-plated silverware and that’s what I do. Incidentally, I think you hit the nail on the head, the only time, though, that I have problems with excessive tarnish and/or my skin turning green is when I’m wearing sunscreen. Otherwise, no real problems other than the occasional normal tarnishing of silver.

I don’t know about the safety of any kind of spray or anything but for my anecdote, I painted the back of the necklace that I wear every single day, all day, and I haven’t had any problems.

4

Tarnish probably wasn’t the right word, because this definitely isn’t silver, but the finish did start to dull/darken.