Finish Damage from Hand Lotion

[Rob Luter]

This is going to sound odd......

My bride is a regular hand lotion user, applying it multiple time a day. On the up side she has beautiful hands and it keeps them soft. On the down side it's causing finish damage to some of our furniture. She sits on the bed in front of the window to apply cosmetics and steadies herself by placing her hand on the footboard. The finish in that location is now as soft as beeswax and can be scraped off with a thumbnail. The same is true at our kitchen table where she rests her hands in front of her usual spot. Both locations are oak (bed = QSWO, table = FSRO) with what I believe to be a poly finish.

Any tips on repairing these areas? Any tips on what I might use going forward that won't be attacked by hand lotion residue?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I don't know the answer but just passed on a job replacing doors, jambs and casing in a home with a serious case of hand lotion residue. Over the years I have tried several finish repairs for these folks with disappointing results. Replacing everything the Mrs. has touched over the last 40 years is what the homeowners have come up with. I tried to clean and polish their door knobs. When I finally got all of the goo off the knobs were down to bare steel.

[John TenEyck]

The oils and ?? in hand lotion that keeps your hands soft also soften many finishes, no different than what the natural oils and sweat from your skin will do, just a lot faster. I know of no way to restore the damaged finish short of removing it and starting over. The most durable finishes are catalyzed ones, like conversion varnish and 2K polyurethane. I'd look at one of those for the longest durability.

John

[glenn bradley]

These products do have things in them that do not play well with many other things in our world. Barrier protection is the ultimate answer. If I transferred harmful products from my hand to the wall around the light switch on a regular basis for years, eventually the area will fail. A towel, bit of shelf liner or some other protective layer placed on the area of concern is your easiest preventative action.

Recovering a damaged poly film generally involves removal and re-application. The depth of the damage into the base material will vary your possibility of recovery there. If the oils have penetrated the wood, leaching via alcohol or lacquer thinner has worked for me. Once (if) recovered, I color to match, seal with shellac, and re-apply the poly. The methods to repair poly finishes is another discussion

[Rob Luter]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm resigned to have to refinish these areas. I'm hoping I can get them to match. We had this occur once before in a car she drove regularly. The buttons and knobs on the dashboard and steering wheel had pad printed icons on them. After a couple years they were all gone, dissolved by the lotion.

[Mel Fulks]

There are old home made creams made from beeswax. Made some when I was a kid ,but right now I don’t recall where I read it.

[Scott Winners]

You might make up small pieces of red and white oak and ask her to handle them daily for a while to see what lotion finished oak would look like. Serious. I have been fooling with very basic wood finishes for a little bit now, soap finish for example. If she is handling say a smart phone sized piece of oak a couple times a day for two months, you can look at it together say around Christmas to see if it is possible contender.

I know lots of people love polyurethane, but I am not one of them. Oak does not need very much help to last a very long time. My two cents.

[Prashun Patel]

Glen and John, can you be more specific about the bad actors in lotion specifically that are damaging to a finish?

I suspect a phenolic resin finish will fare better. This is from experience of having a Waterlox bar and Waterlox shower bench. Both have lasted for a decade and are going strong. The shower bench gets shampoo, soap and conditioner daily.

Also, many of the chemical drums in my plant are phenolic resin lined.

This is only a hypothesis.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The hand lotion house I helped with had a real problem It was custom built in the early 1980's. I first worked there around 2012. The trim is Pine with Special Walnut stain and oil varnish. There was an accumulation of sticky goo around the middle of all of the doorways, casings, jambs, doors and knobs. The homeowners were rightfully disgruntled with their builder who had cut a lot of corners. Refinishing the trim was on the list of things they hired me to do. I worked on their kitchen and bathrooms for two months before I tackled the trim refinishing. By then I had found the culprit. Vaseline Intensive Care Hand Lotion, bottles of it in most rooms being used many times every day. Every where the lotion had accumulated the finish was ruined and the wood saturated with oils. Nothing I tried produced good results. The owners were very sensitive to fumes and odors. The job became very difficult.

From Vaseline,
Screen Shot 2022-10-14 at 7.47.07 AM.png

[Prashun Patel]

I cringe when I hear “oils” and “things”. Those terms are not specific and cause misinterpretation by readers. I am in the chemical business and lay people draw conclusions they should not about all chemicals when the terms are not properly used on forums like this.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I cringe when I hear “oils” and “things”. Those terms are not specific and cause misinterpretation by readers. I am in the chemical business and lay people draw conclusions they should not about all chemicals when the terms are not properly used on forums like this.

Prashan, If you have any in-site on the ingredients from the Vaseline web site I would be keen to learn what is involved. I sure do not know most of those words.

Advanced Repair Unscented Lotion 600ml | Vaseline® Intensive Care® | Unilever Vaseline®

Aqua, Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycol Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Paraffinum Liquidum, Dimethicone, Glyceryl Stearate, Petrolatum, Cetyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Methylparaben, Triethanolamine, Propylparaben, Stearamide AMP, Disodium EDTA, Isopropyl Myristate, Cedrol

Aqua, Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycol Stearate, PEGEDTA, Isopr

[John TenEyck]

Prashun, I don't know what specific chemicals or compounds cause finishes to soften. I do know that most any petroleum-based oil or grease and human oil and sweat will soften many varnishes, shellac, and lacquer finishes when left on for long periods of time. I had a waterborne varnish finish damaged from a rubber pad someone laid their iPhone on. In that case, I suspect it was a plasticizer in the rubber, but that's just a guess. In any case, it changed the sheen from matte to glossy and it remained there for months afterwards and probably still.

The exposure your shower bench gets is not the same as leaving lotion, grease, etc. on the finish 24/7/365. It's impressive how well it has held up for you, but I think that's a different set of variables.

John

[Prashun Patel]

The ingredients in the conditioner and soap and lotion have some overlaps. All I'm saying is the chemistry is complicated. I think as experts, you and Glen can be more specific because a lot of people (myself included) will look to your posts as gospel.

In my business we work very closely with lotions and all personal care products. We design the fragrances that go into these products. So I'm aware of the differences - but also the similarities and the variety of ingredients that go into these things. Esters, acids, terpenes, silicone, the pH - all of these things can destabilize different polymers. Anyway, at the end of the day, I defer to your experience on all things finishing, so no disrespect intended.

[Warren Lake]

hard to believe that stuff can do so much damage. I never wanted soft hands the more callus the better for doing this work. We had a guy at a show I did years ago that had many beeswax products Burts Bees.

Friend that restores Vettes if ever any oil leak on a fiberglass panel they are cut out as you cant take a chance stuff bleeds back out later and it happened. With wood depending some are porous and stuff will go into the pores. Ive seen stain bleed back out when stuff got warmed.

Friends daughter showed me her phone and held a product in front of it, it tells you what if any nasty chemicals are in there. Star Wars technology to me not having a cell.

With all the chemicals in stuff guess DR Sasquash and his natural soap is doing well.

[John TenEyck]

The ingredients in the conditioner and soap and lotion have some overlaps. All I'm saying is the chemistry is complicated. I think as experts, you and Glen can be more specific because a lot of people (myself included) will look to your posts as gospel.

In my business we work very closely with lotions and all personal care products. We design the fragrances that go into these products. So I'm aware of the differences - but also the similarities and the variety of ingredients that go into these things. Esters, acids, terpenes, silicone, the pH - all of these things can destabilize different polymers. Anyway, at the end of the day, I defer to your experience on all things finishing, so no disrespect intended.

You give at least me too much credit, Prashun. I'm no expert, just a guy with a ceramic engineering degree, so my chemistry is mostly limited to stuff that doesn't burn, and who has lot of finishing experience with a small group of finishing products. Your in-depth knowledge of organic chemistry gives you a heightened awareness and curiosity on this, when the rest of us are content to say grease, oil and hand lotion and call it good enough. And, for practical purposes, I think it is good enough. If hand lotion causes finishes to soften, there's not much anyone except folks in your line of work can do about it except accept the consequences or avoid them.

John