Cleaning fungus traces ... (1)

After beeing away for a while because of professional reasons, now back willing to share the last hint ...

As most of you know, the worst enemy of a lens is not dust or sand (or the Nutella on your fingertips), but the spores that fix on the elements of the lens and grow, especially in an humid environment, leading to some specks on the lenses, almost impossible to clean with "normal" liquids ...

Having fed my LBA with a Boyer Saphir B 135/4.5 for a few euros, i was quite disappointed by discovering that, once cleaned from dust, the lens showed some fungus traces on its front element (shame on me, i neglected to take a picture of the lens before cleaning ...). I was aware, from some forums discussions, that a good method for cleaning fungus traces from lenses was a cure of Cold Cream, but i was ... disappointed ... by the fact that every people was talking about Pond's Cold Cream, which is not commonly available in France ...
But, a few days ago, my friend told me that the cold cream is the oldest available cosmetic in the world, and that it is sold by almost all the major brands, with the same basic composition ... So, i went to the pharmacy and bought a tube of Avène Cold Cream, telling to myself that, in the worst case, i could have used it for my hands ...
And last night i decided to give it a try ... I started by cleaning the lens with some Zippo fluid (almost 100% pure kerosene, one of the best lens cleaning fluids around), then i applied some cold cream, and waited almost an hour ... Then i cleaned the lens again, and checked the fungus traces: they were still there, but the mold specks were lighter :-) ... So i decided for another try: another application of cold cream, and another cleanout after almost two hours ...

And the results are:


No more mold on the lens :-))) ...

I'm aware that this is only a little win, i still have to test it with my Meyer Orestor 135/2.8, with a nice fungus spot on its inner element (i promise, this time i will not forget to take a picture of the beast before trying to clean it), but the results i got with this lens seems quite promising to me ...

The whole set of pictures is in this Flickr set.

My Boyer Saphir B 135/4.5 wishes to thanks the Zippo fluid, the Avène Cold Cream, the basin cap and the microfibers cloth ...


... And of course my FA-43 Limited for taking the pictures ...