Stay away from the nail polish @ the pivot pin, dry as mentioned above, you can even take a hair dryer to it, but oil it once done with it. You can also clean up things with q-tips. You can flatten them with a hammer or spoon so that they can get into the scales for cleaning & polishing with your favorite metal polish like flitz, maas, semi-chrome, etc. Most all of us try to keep the pivot area dry even when shaving because a wet tang can be a slippery tang...something I personally DO NOT want.