The one comment about the ivory being porous at least acknowledges the real issue in making ivories wonderful, or at least so that they'll stay clean. Cleaning dirty ivories is not the issue. Closing the pores is the issue. Cleaning off surface grime is only good for a few days of use. If you polish the surface once it is clean, then the ivories will stay clean much longer, needing only to be wiped with terrycloth. A missionary friend shared that in Africa, when the natives want their ivory sculpture to gleam, they use Brasso. If you polish them with a wheel, you'd use an appropriate abrasive, probably about the same grit as Brasso. In a pinch, you can even use white tooth paste or tooth polish (NOT GEL!! as you need the abrasives found in the paste or polish). It has worked for me. The tooth paste can also double for filling nail holes in drywall. Blessings! -- Dean Thomas
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