How To Repair Furniture Damaged By Fragrant Oil

Not too long ago, the essential oil craze took hold in suburban America. This craze offered up a lot of benefits, including the fact that people started to look into natural health options more frequently. Unfortunately, this eco-friendly trend did have some kind of casualty here: furniture and clothing.

It’s no secret that a lot of fragrance oils and essential oils have a tendency of staining things. With clothes, you can just take them to a professional cleaner and have stains come out. With furniture, things aren’t so easy. Having been there and done that, I know that it can be hard to repair furniture damaged by fragrance oils.

When you first see that stain, it can be hard to believe. Most people don’t really think that oil can stain furniture until it happens to them. When it does, they often feel lost. Need help? Here’s what I learned works.

The easiest way to get rid of the stains and damages that come from having one of those oil warmers spill on your furniture is to use furniture scratch repair solution—like Old English. When picking your bottle, try to get a shade that closely matches your furniture or is a little lighter.

If the damage is severe, use fine-grade sandpaper to sand down your stained area. Otherwise, just use a soft rag to wipe the solution onto your damaged area. Wait until the coat of scratch repair dries, then put another coat or two on top. Finish it with a top coat, so you can lock in the color.

Let’s say that you did a major no-no and ended up spilling a ton of fragrant oil on your dining room table. It sank in. Yikes, right? Well, if you’re in this situation, scratch repair alone probably won’t work as well as it should.

In these situations, you might need to sand down the damaged area, strip the lacquer off of your surrounding areas, and then reapply a wood finish over it. Obviously, you will need to get a finish that is close to your wood’s original finish in order to make this work.

This is a fix that should only be done with antiques or if you have extreme damage done by your fragrance oils. Otherwise, you’re just adding more work that needs to be done.

I’m not going to try to joke around here. Furniture upholstery and oil stains don’t mix. It can get very bad, very quick. However, there is some good news to remember here. Oil stains can usually be taken out by blotting a cotton ball of rubbing alcohol onto the affected area and then wipe the area down with a bar of soap.

If you have dyes involved in your fragrance oil or if your fragrance oil is dark, things get a little dicey. In these situations, you might have a job for a local cleaner. Since the dye is also mixed with oil, or worse, oil-based, you will probably need to get someone who is specialized in stain removal to help you out.