Three Surprising Rules I Never Expected in Art Conservation

When I started out in conservation, I expected to be told how to handle fragile objects, how to write condition reports, and how to keep solvents away from priceless surfaces. What I didn’t expect were rules about stationery, manicures, or even what I drink at lunch. These details felt nit-picky at first, but each has a clear reason grounded in conservation’s bigger principles: control, reversibility, and avoiding contamination. Here are three rules that caught me by surprise when i first entered the studio.

1. No Pens

At first glance, it feels pedantic. Surely a pen is fine for note-taking or labelling? The problem is that ink is messy chemistry in motion. Inks contain dyes or pigments suspended in binders and solvents, sometimes with extra additives to help them flow or dry. On absorbent surfaces like paper, gesso, or unvarnished paint, these components can bleed, stain, and sometimes even chemically react with the support. Once that happens, the ink isn’t just a mark…it’s part of the object, and removing it risks damaging the surface further.

Graphite pencil, on the other hand, is basically inert carbon. It just sits on the surface, doesn’t dissolve in the kinds of solvents we use in the studio, and can usually be reduced or erased if needed. The key is to use it lightly, ideally with a harder grade so you don’t leave smudgy trails everywhere. In short: pens bring permanence into a field obsessed with reversibility, while pencil leaves you in control.

Practice tips:

• Use hard grades (H–2H) to reduce smear and particle transfer; avoid soft B grades.

• I personally prefer mechanical pencils! investing in a good quality pencil makes a world of difference…

2. No Nail Polish

I was sceptical about this one. Surely gloves are the barrier that protects both you and the artwork, so who cares if your nails are painted? But conservation work often involves solvents like acetone, ethanol, and isopropanol. Nitrile gloves are strong and resistant, but nail polish itself is vulnerable. These solvents can soften or dissolve it, releasing pigments and polymers that might then transfer to the surface of gloves, tools, or even the objects you’re working on. Older or brittle polish can also shed flakes on its own, creating an unnecessary risk of contamination.

In other words, it’s not that gloves don’t work; it’s that nail polish doesn’t hold up against the reagents we use. And in conservation, even a speck of softened colour where it doesn’t belong is one variable too many.

Practice tips:

• Keep nails short and uncoated to reduce accidental contact area and particulate shedding.

• If a manicure is unavoidable (not sure in what situation this would apply - but hey ho!), allow full cure well in advance, and still treat it as a contamination source.

• Change gloves frequently when working with strong solvents; wash and dry hands between glove changes to avoid carrying softened residues.

3. Be Careful What You Drink (Yes, Even Coke)

Saliva is a commonly used cleaning tool. It sounds strange but it has mild buffering properties, due to natural enzymes, that can help remove certain surface dirt and starch residues in a controlled way. The problem is that saliva is not a consistent substance. Its chemistry shifts depending on what you’ve eaten, drunk, or even if you smoke! Considerations that i never considered but seem so obvious…

Take a can of Coke (or your morning coffee!), for instance. It drops the pH of your saliva into the acidic range. Smoking, meanwhile, changes saliva’s buffering capacity and chemical balance, making it less predictable. Suddenly, your everyday habits directly affect the outcome of a conservation treatment. For this reason, many studios now encourage synthetic saliva or enzyme gels instead, they’re consistent, testable, and don’t depend on what you had for lunch!

Practice tips:

• Stick to drinking water when at work - or use synthetic saliva.

These rules might sound fussy at first, but they get to the heart of what conservation is really about: reducing risk and avoiding anything that can’t be reversed. Are there any considerations or rules that have surprised you?