By Jason Church, NCPTT materials conservator
Here at NCPTT we get a lot of calls and e-mails concerning cemetery care and preservation. This question came in this week from Daniel Kester of Williamsville, N.Y. I decided to post his question and our response because lots of people may have the same question.
Question: I am interested in genealogy, and one ongoing discussion in the genealogical community is whether it is “okay” to use shaving cream on gravestones to read them easier (fill the writing with shaving cream, then squeegee it off, so that the writing is highlighted in white). Some say that there are chemicals in shaving cream that damage the stone; others say it won’t do any harm. My suspicion is that none of them (on either side of the argument) know what they are talking about; at best they are guessing at what they think might happen.
Biological growth flourishes on the remains of shaving cream used to read the epitaph.
Answer: We do not advocate the use of shaving cream for investigating inscriptions on stone. The shaving cream has natural emollients for softening the skin. These emollients have oils and moisture holding agents that can have detrimental effects on the stone. The emollients can stain the stone by penetrating into the porous material. They are very appealing nutrients to bacteria, fungi, and mold, and because the oils stay on the surface, they attract dirt. This leads to biological deterioration over the long term.
Other ways to study hard-to-read inscriptions include the use of lighting and mirrors or water. A car sun shade or photographer’s reflector can be used to bounce light on to the stone from an angle. Raking light can assist in making a carving more legible. Also, simply wetting the stone with water from a spray bottle can change the reflectance of the stone surface enough to make out the inscription. Researchers funded by NCPTT are working on more high-tech methods, too. Cultural Heritage Imaging, a non-profit out of California, is using reflectance transformation imaging to study surfaces that are hard to read, like rock art.
NCPTT research assistant Curtis Desselles uses a reflector to photograph a worn inscription.
These are some excellent suggestions for reading inscriptions.
Thanks for pulling the resources together.
Thank you for your reply and discouarging the use of Shaving Cream. It would be a shame in a effort to preserve our ancestry, we do something that would negatively effect the preservation of grave stones!
Check out http://www.shavinggraves.com for an experiment I did.
Gary Fletcher: At your website, you wrote:
“5. What this experiment did not evaluate was the long-term effect of shaving cream on a gravestone. . .”
But, isn’t that the whole point – the potential for long-term damage? As the article above states, there IS long-term damage in the form of biological agents (molds, bacterial colonies) that anchor into stone and cause fractures, like ivy on a brick wall. It obvious that the cream didn’t wash off. Even if the long-term effects weren’t damaging to the stone, those effects are very ugly. Would you want to see your ancestor’s gravemarkers looking like the one above? Unfortunately, they can look much worse than that one: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=252628&GRid=28139063&
Regarding the link you cite to the “Shaving Cream on Tombstones”
by Dr. Gregg Bonner (I doubt that he’s doctor of gravestone studies or preservation) page that complains about “stearic acid myths” (no sites I’ve read do that, by the way), that in turn cites Dick Eastman’s shaving cream support, read down to the bottom of Eastman’s blog comments on this topic and you’ll see how he suddenly back peddles after learning about NCPTT’s stand on the subject: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2005/05/tombstones_and_.html
As taxpayers, we pay the NCPPT to be the authority on all things preservationist. Why wouldn’t we follow their expert advice? With such easy, no mess techniques as spraying plain water (no cost!), lightly foiling (recyclable!), or using reflected sunlight (no cost!), why does anyone even consider buying and using a potentially damaging substance that was never designed to be used for this purpose?
I have read the article from NCPTT about shaving cream on tombstones and it seems to say the same thing I have read time and time again. They do not say that it WILL harm the tombstone they say it CAN. I guess only their opinion. I would like to see a study by a highly respected company that would answer this question on all types of stone that are used for grave markers. I have used shaving cream on tombstones and gone back 20 years later and there was no visiable damage to the stone. I recently read that granite is not effected by acid, I have read some think the stearic acid in shaving cream is what damages the stone.
There are many sources that discourage the use of shaving cream on gravestones in order to view/photograph inscriptions, such as http://www.genealogy.com/64_gravestones.html;
Shaving cream includes Water, Stearic Acid, Isobutane, Laureth-23, Fragrance, Propane, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and other compounds intended to make your face feel smooth. Grave markers can be made from many types of stone. Marble, limestone, and sandstone are sensitive to acidic compounds, depending on the particular rock and mineral formation. Shaving cream has a pH of around 5, similar to acid rain. Other compounds in shaving cream do promote biological growth, depending on where the grave stone is located. Emollients are not as water soluble as other compounds, and weathered stones are often more porous than new stones. Dirt can be more attracted the ingredients in shaving cream, even on well-rinsed surfaces. The article is not intended to an in-depth research paper, but it does reflect current knowledge of chemical and physical interactions between materials and chemicals. It serves as a guide for commonly accepted best practice.
More importantly, is it necessary to use shaving cream in order to see inscriptions? You may need to think through the pros and cons of using shaving cream with regard to potential impacts on the conditions of the markers versus easier, less intrusive methods to capture the same information. Photography offers distinct advantages. Photographs document the condition of the grave marker at a specific point in time. They serve as a reference point for the future. There are methods that can enhance the image in a photograph. An application of water onto a marker can often help reveal difficult to read inscriptions. Use of a simple light reflector on to a surface can make the inscriptions more legible. Light that is reflected at 45 degrees or greater from one side is often sufficient. Raking light can also help with the photography of the stones. A polarizing filter can limit reflections off a grave marker, making it easier to read. Use of image enhancing software, such as Adobe Photoshop can manipulate the contrast to making information more legible. This provides essentially a noncontact, least invasive method of capturing the information for the family, while protecting the marker. Why use shaving cream when other techniques are easier?