Cleaning Tips for Cleaning Your Crystal Chandeliers

Crystal chandeliers add a touch of elegance and class to your home. When they are new their sparkle enhances the ambiance of the room or hall in which they are fitted. However within a few months of use they gather a layer of dust, their sparkle fades away and they get a forlorn look. Here are a few cleaning tips for cleaning your crystal chandelier that will help you to maintain their sparkle always.

To keep your chandeliers in sparkling condition you need to clean them every two or three months. Crystal chandeliers are delicate and have complex designs and this makes their cleaning a bit difficult. They need much more careful handling than other fixtures in your home. Make sure that you know how to dismantle the individual parts and reassemble them before attempting to clean your chandelier. Pay close attention to these cleaning tips.

You will need some tools and cleaning materials to start your cleaning job. You will need a feather or wool duster. You will also need a pair of white cotton gloves and lint free soft cleaning cloth. This is to protect your hands from getting cut by the crystals accidentally and also to make your cleaning easy. You will need some cleaning detergent as well. A liquid detergent is more suitable.

To commence cleaning, start by carefully removing the glass or crystal pieces one by one and dusting them. It is advisable not to remove all the pieces at a time because then you will not remember where the pieces were fitted originally as the pieces may be of different sizes or shapes belonging to particular sections of the design or pattern of the chandelier. Remove a particular type of piece one by one and clean.

After dusting, cleaning of the crystal pieces is done by dipping a small portion of the cleaning cloth in the detergent solution and wiping each piece and then wiping with another cloth dipped in cool clear water and finally drying it immediately with a clean dry cloth. You can also use a glove to wipe the pieces in the final step. You can also simultaneously clean the portion of the frame from which the pieces are removed. It is beneficial to make the detergent solution in lukewarm water.

Some modern chandelier designs can be cleaned without removing the crystal pieces or pendants from the frame. For this you can use a pair of white cotton gloves. To start with, you can make a solution of 1 part isopropyl alcohol and 3 parts of distilled water. Fill a spray bottle with this solution. Put on one glove and spray it with the cleaning solution. Keep the other glove dry. Clean each pendant with the dampened glove by gently caressing it and then wiping it dry with the dry glove or a lint free cloth.

There are some precautions you need to take at the time of cleaning the chandelier in place. Don’t rotate or twirl the chandelier as this may cause the crystals to come off or hit each other and break. You can move around the chandelier by shifting the ladder or chair around it. If you are removing the crystal pieces for cleaning then don’t remove them all at a time, rather handle the job section by section. Finally don’t handle the crystal pieces with your bare hands to avoid getting cut accidentally.