Around the House: Use Time and not Effort to Clean your Menorahs

By Yehudit Garmaise

Use time and not effort today to wash menorahs before packing them away for the year.

As cleaning cups of oils that are burnt and greasy and menorahs plastered with eight days of candle wax may seem daunting, we compiled a few easy tips to get your menorahs looking good as new without a lot of effort, according to Renee Muller on betweencarpools.com.

To clean menorahs’ glass cups of oil:

• Gently place the menorah in a large plastic or glass bowl.
• Add to the bowl: warm water and ¾ c. ammonia (any color, scent, or brand is fine.) 
• Others have successfully cleaned their oil cups by mixing into warm water: laundry detergent, OxiClean stain-removing powder, or Lestoil, which is a cleaning product.
• Then, you can get some work done or do something fun for a few hours while the ammonia works its cleaning magic.
• You can also leave the cups to soak overnight.
• Once the cups look clean, you can carefully wash them by hand with hot, soapy water or place them in the top rack of your dishwasher.

 

To clean menorahs that burn candles, you don’t have to stand at the sink scraping off the wax with a plastic knife.

• Just lay your candle burning menorahs on the ground outside, so melted wax does not clog your pipes nor leave residue on your pots.
• If you are using a deck or an entryway, first pay down rags or paper towels to catch the wax.
• Fill your tea kettle with water, and boil it.
• Make sure your little ones are nowhere near, hopefully at school, before you carefully pour the scalding hot water on the menorahs.
• The wax should slide right off.
• Rinse off your menorahs, and they are sparkling and ready to be packed away for next year!