From time to time, you may need to clean the glass covering your pictures. Here’s a couple of tips for doing it right.

First, make sure it’s glass, and not acrylic. Acrylic looks and sounds a lot like glass. But glass cleaner can emulsify (dissolve) the surface of acrylic, so you should use plastic cleaner for acrylic, which you can get at most home improvement stores.

How to tell the difference: get a pin (any kind) and try to push it into the glass, at the very inside corner of the frame. If it goes in at all, or “sticks”, it’s plastic. If it doesn’t, and just slides around, it’s glass.

Next, if the picture is hanging on the wall, don’t spray the cleaner onto the glass—it can run down, then soak up under the the glass and ruin your artwork or mats. Instead, spray the cleaner onto your cloth or paper towel, and then clean the glass.

But if it’s acrylic, never use paper towels—they’ll make tiny scratches in the acrylic, and over time make the appearance look blurry. Use pure cotton rag if at all possible.

Finally, hold on to the picture with one hand while you’re wiping with the other. It’ll prevent the picture from moving around and making rub marks on the wall, and you’ll prevent the picture from trying to fall off your wall (not a problem if you have Pictures Plus Incorporated handle your professional picture installation!).