Waste of bees time. (Briwax Original Wax)

Member Name: hillcrestsan

Product:	Briwax Original Wax
Date:	31/03/08 (399 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cleans, polishes

Disadvantages: stains a teeny-weeny bit.

Briwax original wax.
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About 6 years ago we bought a pine dining table. God were posh. We liked pine at the time, I was told. Now we like leather and dark woods I'm told. But then we liked pine. The kitchen, rather than be given the much needed gutting, was instead embellished. By pine.

For a couple of years the table was cherished with cloths and table protectors but eventually we apparently got bored of that and now it is exposed once more in all its glory. The trouble, as predicted, is that eventually the sunlight and the children get to it. It's started to look worse for wear and 'Antique' before its time.

So we started rubbing things on it. I found this thrilling but it only made it worse. The first, and indeed only, restorative treatment we have used on it has been this Briwax Original Wax and despite having some interesting qualities, it has failed to restore the furniture to it former 'glory'.

Packaging.
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The stuff comes in a nice round tin containing 400gms of the stuff. It has a nice oldy-worldy look about it - the sort of thing that you'd find in your grandfathers shed when he dies, hardly used and a bit rusty. I know the feeling. In 30 years the tin would be sold to a collector for £3.20. That sort of thing.

Scrawled on the tin are the directions for use - nice and simple and bloody great warning symbols telling you not to eat it no matter how hungry you are. Even unborn babies are not safe. Oh and if you do eat it - don't vomit. Have you ever tried NOT vomiting when you need to? And if you do vomit, do you then have to eat your own sick? We should be told.

The hit
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So when you do eventually open it you realise the need for the warning. There is the heady scent of marker pens. Really heady. It fills the room at takes you off to a land of flowers and music and naked ladies. This is the toluene that it contains. That's one of the 'T's in TNT. Obviously, smelling solvents is very dangerous and not to be recommended but there is something very alluring about the aroma. The wax is dark brown, like melted chocolate with a lovely soft consistency.

Overall, Briwax have created something that looks like chocolate and smells heavenly and then tell you you can't eat it.

They do make a toluene-free version if you are sensitive to volatiles and have no call to make home-made explosives.

Directions.
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Scoop it up with a soft cloth and rub, rub, rub. It's not hard work and it soaks in well. Think Karate Kid. They suggest you use 00 gauge wire wool but I ain't got any.

Does it work?
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Well, the tin says it cleans, stains and polishes. It does 2 out of 3 well.

Rubbing a table with a cloth, by its very nature, will clean. That's what rubbing does. There is an unsuitable gag there which I'm resisting. The table, afterwards looks polished. Again, rubbing will do that. And err.... polishing. What we needed was some really good staining. Patches of the table have faded over time and we wanted to get a uniform colour. Well, even though the lighter patches do slightly darken with the wax, it is a miniscule effect. We have put layer upon layer of the stuff on the table and we are nowhere near uniformity. There just isn't enough oomph in the stain for what we wanted.

Overall
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Perhaps we expected too much. I feel I'm being a bit harsh and really, this is a product you need to use from day one to make sure your tables original colour and shine is maintained. Perhaps that pesky horse has bolted.

I still feel, even though we are not restoring the table, we are doing a good job at maintaining and preserving it from further wear so, I'll give it a 6 out of 10.

More details can be found here: http://www.briwax.co.uk/products/briwax.html

Thanks for reading. May also be posted on other sites.
Ciao.
Dave

Summary: Use it from the off if you want it to make a difference