15 years of fan blade junk which I wouldn't have even thought of until we were working on our vaulted ceiling. I looked down and saw the tops of my fan blades and was shocked. They were black black. The best thing to use is Goof Off. I tried everything else mentioned above and none of it worked. I had some Goof Off in my laundry room and it took that sticky tarry black stuff right off my fan blades without any damage. I sprayed each blade and by the time I got back around to the first blade I was able to get the first layer off. I sprayed it again and worked on the next blade. The 2nd time around the rest just wiped right off and they looked brand new. Good Off works like magic. The only warning I would give is put a towel or cloth down underneath your fan on the floor. The Goof Off over-spray is very slippery and I almost wiped out on my tile floor.

I have had good luck with a clean paint brush. It will get inside the pleats. At least this works for pleated lamp shades.

How fun! Can you remove the hardware, patch the holes and paint them a color that matches your decor, then use them to hold candles or tealights?

I had one. Took a template to a fabricator and DH installed. Blades didn’t look any worse that a dusty window and from a distance, never dirty looking. Plus they were dusted biweekly like rest of other fans. Our problem was that, not being factory balanced, every so many weeks the fan would wiggle -and hubs got tired of rebalancing. With lots of $, as pricey, I would not hesitate to get another one with clear blades from the factory, if it fit in the decor. ETA: I think it’d be important to have a pretty light fixture with it, as blades are invisible when rotating so for sake of interest, a pretty light s/b part of fixture. mine was in a bedroom. I’m not sure I’d install in a bathroom or kitchen, where there’s moisture and/or grease grime