Furniture wax vs furniture polish…. I recently waxed my wood furniture and don’t know why it took me so long to do this, I will never go back to polish again! I remember when I was a kid my aunt used to wax her furniture she never used polish (she was also an antique dealer, I assume that had something to do with it). I remember my father telling me he used to wax our furniture as well but eventually, we for some unknown reason, switched to polish. I have always used polish on my wood surfaces, I wish I had started using wax a long time ago to save myself some frustration!
My frustration comes from the fact that I like my surfaces, floors, counters, furniture etc to always look clean. I try to vacuum or dust-mop the floors at least every other day and lately I was noticing my wood furniture started to look dull within a day or two of polishing it. I started to become annoyed with polishing the furniture multiple times a week if I didn’t then the tops of the furniture looked dry and dingy. I decided to give waxing a whirl figured it can’t look any worse, if it does then I will just strip and refinish the surfaces (something I have to do eventually anyway).
I bought a quick drying paste wax and got started. I’m so kicking myself for not taking before photos 🙁 but if your furniture is dingy or dull looking after a few days of polishing then you don’t need to see my before photos, you have your own furniture to look at! It took me about an hour to put the wax on and buff it off on my dining room table, an end table in the living room and the two tables in the bedroom.
The result? One week after doing this my furniture still looked awesome!! Gone are the days of having to dust or polish multiple times a week. I notice with the wax for some reason dust collection on these surfaces is far less then when I was dry dusting or using furniture polish and the little dust that does accumulate on the surfaces only needs to be dusted off once a week!!
Below are a few photos of the sheen that is on the table tops a week after applying the wax.
(excuse the messy bed I was lazy and didn’t feel like making it!). Both of these tables have always looked dingy, dull and dusty within a day or two after using polish on them, with the wax a week later they still shine! The nice thing is they don’t have that wet I just polished look to them, they just have a beautiful sheen to them. Yup I will be waxing all my wood surfaces now!
So what’s the downside? If the finish on your furniture is not in perfect condition the wax will not cover that, it will in fact draw more attention to the imperfections. So it’s a toss up, polish your furniture more frequently to get that clean shine and not draw attention to any imperfections OR wax and dust less frequently and have your furniture look clean with a sheen but show the imperfections. I’ll take clean with a sheen any day over polish!
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