Vinegar vs Brasso. And the winner is...

I have a few curios I’ve picked up over the years including some brass stuff I bought from Melaka on whim. These include the whole Sireh (betel nut) consumption panoply.

Just the other day, I glanced at it and realised the shiny bronze colour had been replaced by a tarnished near-black patina. Determined to make it look good again, I resorted to a green technique I’d used before. One that eschews the artificial and environmentally-questionable chemicals that are so popular nowadays for something altogether more natural and completely biodegradable: vinegar.

The only vinegar we had was an old bottle of balsamic vinegar which Mei wanted to replace with a newer one (she reckons it didn’t taste so nice anymore but honestly I can’t tell) and rather than throwing it away, I conveniently grabbed it to do the dirty. Or rather the cleaning.

Balsamic vinegar is supposedly more acidic, so perhaps that would increase its cleaning prowess. Whatever, it did turn out to be particularly staining on the fingernails so I put on a pair of kitchen gloves. I soaked some of the smaller pieces in a thin layer of the vinegar then attacked it with an old toothbrush. It did help somewhat as you can tell from these pictures. I’m not sure why the metal took on a pinkish hue but this could be due to the quality of the metal itself. As I recall, this thing didn’t cost that much so perhaps the metal is of inferior quality. It did take on a used and weathered look which I find quite attractive.

At the supermarket a little later, I bought a cheap bottle of white vinegar and soaked some of the pieces overnight in this, then went at the pieces lightly with a scouring pad. It did wonders! See for yourself…

Just a bit of soaking and light brushing and see the difference. The cover on the left of the toothbrush head has been lightly cleaned while the one to the right has not.

See what a bit of soaking can do. This hasn't even been brushed yet!

And after some light scrubbing just look at the shine!

I’m now wondering what to do about the bigger pieces. I think I’ll soak a cloth in some vinegar and wrap it around the piece for a few hours.

All in all, I feel quite pleased with myself and am looking forward to trying this out on more pieces around the house. Come back here to check on updates to that.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to try a greener way to clean metals and more, check these sites out: the Wikipedia page on vinegar and a site on the 1001 uses of Vinegar. I’m going to try the Scouring Cleaner they teach you how to make next! Oh and my friend Anand says Indian women have been using vinegar to keep their jewellery shiny for years. I wonder if that site listed this tip too...