you’re eating,” I asked Grime, “does it make sense to dab it with saliva? As a kind of natural laundry presoak?” “That’s an interesting thought.” Dr. Grime carries a Tide stain pen. He does not use his own spit. Art conservators do. “We make cotton swabs on bamboo sticks and moisten the swab in our mouths,” says Andrea Chevalier, senior paintings conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Saliva is especially helpful for fragile surfaces that solvents or water would dissolve.
