How To Clean Wax Off Of Your Hanukkah Menorah

Image by Forward Montage, Laura E. Adkins

By Laura Cowan December 7, 2017

Flummoxed by how to clean off the wax stuck to your Hanukkiah? We’re here to help:

The best way to clean off your Hanukkah menorah is to heat the wax with a hair dryer and clean it off with a kitchen towel. Use cotton swabs if you need to get into the candle bits. Or you can put it in the sink and pour boiling water over it, the wax should just pop out of the candle holders, but it can get a bit messy.

The most important thing is not to attack it with a knife! It could scratch the finish.

If you have a stainless steel menorah, the best way to shine up the base is with regular vinegar. This also works for fridge doors, and is much more efficient and cheaper than any special steel cleaner!

For an original collection of modern menorah designs and dreidels, look no further than Laura Cowan’s Hanukkah collection.

For more information on Hanukkah, check out Chabad or My Jewish Learning.

Contemporary Jewish artist and Judaica designer Laura Cowan is a graduate of Silversmithing and Jewellery at London Guildhall University, and now lives in Israel.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO