I love zils. Saroyan zils are my favorite. Currently I have only three pairs (Tutankhamuns, Persians, and Ghawazees. I recently gave away my 13-year old – and still good! – Nefertitis to a friend who’s recently started learning to belly dance), so I feel I need more. I’m actually itching for a pair of silver Afghanis right now. And as an ATS dancer, I naturally use my zils very heavily. I try to take good care of them, too. Maintaining zils is as essential a process as maintaining any other musical instrument. In the interest of helping other dancers keep their zils in shape and prolong their lifespan, I thought I’d do a series of articles on taking care of your zils.

We’ll begin with cleaning. The natural oils and salt from your skin will damage your zils after a period of time. You can help prevent this by giving them a wipe-down after use, making sure they are dry before putting them away, and storing them properly (next installment of the zils series: storage). Metals react to air, and acquire a coating of protection that’s called nondestructive oxidation. Oxidation is a natural process of the metal and cannot be completely prevented. You can clean it off to some degree, of course, and try to keep the process at bay, at least until your zils die their natural death as a musical instrument.

The first thing toward cleaning your zils is to know what they’re made of. If you have Saroyans, he quite nicely has the metals listed on his website, so just look up your style and check. If they’re not Saroyan zils, you may have to have a guess. You really have three choices: brass, bronze, or silver-plated. Silver is pretty obvious. Brass tends to be a lighter, more yellow color than bronze. Zils are generally not lacquered, as some brass vases and fixtures often are. The amount of decoration on your zils will affect your ability to clean them: heavily carved pieces are more difficult to clean, thanks to all those small loops and whorls.

If your zils are silver, you can clean them as you would any silverware. Get a dish that’s wide enough to let each of your zils rest on the bottom without touching each other. Line it with aluminum foil, sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda over it, and cover with boiling water. Set your zils down and watch the tarnish disappear.

Brass and bronze zils aren’t quite so easy as silver-plated. Both metals get a green patina on them over the years, thanks to the copper in them, and bronze can turn a reddish color. Brass can be cleaned with a mild detergent, warm water, a cloth. Tarnish can be removed with vinegar.

My Persians are only about a year and a half old. I hadn’t polished them yet, and you can see there are some spots of oxidation on them. I also needed to restring the elastic, so now is as good a time as any!

Mix a small amount of detergent in one bowl, and clean water in a second. Use a cloth dampened with the soapy water to polish the zils. You can use a soft toothbrush to get into any carvings. Rinse the soap off and then dry the zils thoroughly, rubbing with a dry cloth. If you need to remove heavy tarnish, you can boil some white vinegar and dip the zils in it. They will turn red (this is normal!), and you’ll have to polish them back to their original color by rubbing with a soft cloth. You can also use Brasso to polish zils. It works really well and leaves them looking brand-new, so I find this the best method with brass zils.

Minor tarnish may come off simply by being cleaned with soap and water and then polished with Brasso, so try that first before attempting the vinegar. Make sure you use Brasso in a well-ventilated area, and follow the instructions on the bottle. The polishing cloth (I tend to use ragged old bits of towel or washcloths) will be destroyed by the cleaner, so use something you’re prepared to throw away after one use.

Bronze can be polished in several ways.

My bronze Ghawazees are about 8 years old. Oxidation is starting to encroach pretty heavily. They were cleaned just over a year ago using the salt/vinegar/flour method. I don’t recommend this. It can leave the metal looking pink, which you may not mind, but I don’t care for it. There are commercial cleaners and polishers you can use, but I find baking soda and lemon juice a preferable method, as it can be used bare-handed and indoors. Generally, the chemical cleaners don’t work any better than the baking soda/lemon juice. I’ve gotten better results with baking soda/lemon than with using Brasso.

Begin by gathering your supplies:

• Baking soda
• Lemon juice
• Polishing cloth – a soft cotton
• Warm water
• Towel
• Small bowl

Lay out a towel as a work surface, as this is going to make a mess. Take the elastic out of your zils. This is a good time to put in new elastic, if you haven’t lately. Dip the bare zils into the warm water to rinse them off, and dry them thoroughly.

Put two tablespoons of baking soda into a small bowl, and add enough lemon juice to make a paste of roughly toothpaste consistency. You want to be able to rub it in good, but it shouldn’t become too liquid. The baking soda will foam up a bit when you first add the lemon juice. Don’t panic, it will settle down after a minute or two. Add the lemon juice gradually to keep from adding too much. If it becomes too liquid, add a bit more baking soda.

Use the polishing cloth – I like to use baby washcloths, but you can also use bits of an old t-shirt or some microfiber cloth – to scoop up a glob of the paste and rub it into your zils. You can start with the top or bottom of the zils. Don’t forget the edges. Rub in a circular pattern. You can use a very soft toothbrush to get into the carved designs if you need to, but don’t feel that you have to – leaving some patina in the designs can provide contrast that makes them more visible. This is the elbow grease part of the job. Don’t skimp on your rubbing, as this is what cleans the zils. If your zils are in very bad condition, you may have to keep this up for a while before they shine up. You will start to see the shine during this part of the process, so you’ll know how you’re doing.

Now is the easy part. Leave the paste to sit on your zils for about half an hour. They should look something like this:

Once the half hour is up, rinse them in warm water, and then dry thoroughly. Make sure they are all the way dry. Leaving bronze to air-dry speeds up the oxidation process.