HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1926, Page 18

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

AN EXCELLENT POLISH. (By •Hazel Brown.) A little polish can go a long waj towards imparting a fresh appearance to the home. Furniture that has always been well cared for is a simple trick. But sometimes it happens that some of it has had to be neglected; possibly it has been in store and has come back looking woefully shabby and out of sorts. There are various simple but highly efficacious treatments for different woods. In the case, of dark oak warm beef is a splendid reviver. Follow it up with a treatment of orthodox beeswax and turpentine, and the most casual observer could not fail to note the wonderful improvement. Mahogany that has lost, its first pristine lustre can be restored to gleaming beauty with a solution of warm water and malt vinegar, and a subsequent polishing with furniture cream after the preliminary wash has had time to do its work and dry off again—a matter of a day or two. To apply vinegar and water, dip the duster in the solution and wring out till nearly dry, going carefully over, the article so as to miss no part of the eurfaee. Eboniscd wood gives perhaps more trouble than any other kind, as it shows .the slightest neglect so very quickly, and often presents disfiguring white patches to the harassed 'housewifely eye. First apply olive oil to these. Then use a mixture compounded of six ounces of linseed oil and three ounces of vinegar, shaking the two well together, when half an ounce of butter of antimony should be added, together with three ounces of methylated spirits. This will restore the dullest surface to its original high polish. Another point: Use hot dusters when polishing any kind of furniture. It is a good plan' to place two dusters in a nicely-warmed oven and use them alternately. Be careful, of course, that they do not scorch when they are in *the oven.You can remove scratches from furniture a solution made of equal quantities of salad oil and vinegar. Rub well into the wood with a small pad of soft rag and. then polish. Marks on a polished table caused by hot plates prove quite amenable to paraffin treatment. Rp® the paraffin - well in before you polish in the ordinary way. Now glance at the tiled hearths. Stains can be removed from tiles by rubbing them with a, mixture of turpentine and candle wax. Put the turpentine in an old cup and place the cup in a bowl of hot water. Melt -the wax in a tin and pour this into the warm turpentine. Mix well and use while still warm; rubbing the raixthre well into the tiles with a cloth.