How can I get this stain out of my wood table?

Question

A bottle of perfume broke in a red satin bag I had on the table and now it's permanently stained red. Weird, I know. How do I get it out? Preferably without sanding the whole thing?

Answer 1

Depends On what type of finish that was on the table.Something  like a stain most likely ruined the finish on it. The fastest way is to wet sand it just scuff it, put a coat of stain on it. Then put a clear coat finish on it. I know that is not what you wanted to hear but perfume will eat away the finish. Really not hard to do it yourself. Email me if you need any more help.

Answer 2

Here's another suggestion. I'm going to guess that your table was finished with lacquer, especially if it is a piece you bought at a store and that was made in a factory. The perfume uses alcohol as a vehicle, which evaporates on your skin. The alcohol most likely loosened some of the red dye from the bag  and this dye was then dissolved in the spilled perfume. The alcohol then hit the finish on your table top, sat there long enough to soften the lacquer, mix the red dye in with the softened lacquer and now the whole mess has hardened and looks terrible.

So, here's my suggestion, since the finish is near ruined, try this before you take any drastic measures: get a CLEAN piece of soft cotton cloth, like t-shirt material and a bottle of nail polish remover, which is basically acetone. Acetone will quickly cut through that lacquer finish on your table top.

Fold the cloth up so that you can grip it with only a flat side of the cloth being the part that will contact the table top's finish. Don't drag loose ends or threads as they may get caught and stuck in the finish.

Apply some of the nail polish remover to a balled up piece of the cloth and start taking wipes at the stain. Keep the rag moving, don't stop, or it will fuse with the softened finish. Keep the rag dampened and even change rags when one starts to look dirty. You are basically going to "melt" off the top layer of finish and hopefully take the stained part with it. If you can test this on an unseen part of the table, like the underside of the top's overhang where there is hopefully some lacquer finish, that would be best. You'll need to really do this by feel and not work too quickly or with too wet a rag as the finish could completely dissolve and you'll wipe it down to the bare wood. Work with light strokes, keep the rag moving, keep it damp but not soaking wet with the nail polish remover.

If this works, you might get away with just polishing it afterwards, or you may want to try your hand at actually doing a touch-up job with spray lacquer (don't use any other clear coating! Use lacquer only for this job!!) and misting on a few coats of clear lacquer, wait a few days and then rub down the whole table top with some 600 grit wet-or-dry paper and some 0000 grade steel wool.

If this doesn't work, you'll have to sand, possibly re-stain and refinish the area. But this method I'm describing is worth a try before you go that route.

What I'm describing is a basically a professional furniture finish touch-up repair technique and you can do it.