Good Lord - the wood does look lovely (Lord Sheraton Pure Beeswax Balsam)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Lord Sheraton Pure Beeswax Balsam
Date:	23/06/09 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The doors look lovely and smell so nice

Disadvantages: I would need about 5 pots for all my wood

Before I begin my review of this product I thought I would acquaint you all with the challenge I face when cleaning wood in our cottage. The man who owned the place before us was a carpenter and we have a lot of handmade wooden items here including all the skirting boards, 10 solid wood doors, 2 sets of built in wardrobes with matching cupboards, a hand built kitchen complete with wooden settle, hand built wooden storage for coats shoes and umbrellas in the porch, bathroom cupboards and bath panel, shelves in the lounge, dining room and over every radiator, wooden panels over each window to fix the curtain rails to and a lovely hand built wooden staircase. So as you can see cleaning wood in this house is going to be a big job. Oh and for good measure you also need to factor in the log burner and the fact that the staircase leads straight off the lounge so everything gets dirty.

The other day I read a review by lel1969 about Lord Sheraton Pure Beeswax Balsam which is available for £2.10 from Tesco's. Since I had an order due from Tesco's I decided to add a pot of this balsam to the order and give it a go.

The 75g glass pot of balsam arrived in a bright yellow cardboard box with plenty of information about the product and how to use it. The product itself is a blend of pure refined beeswax, cold pressed linseed oil and pine turpentine which gives it a buttery consistency so that it is easy to work it into your wood.

The idea is that the balsam will clean the wood, protect it and restore it to give a 'lustrous sheen'. It is suitable for all wooden furniture including French polished, fine and antique.

The directions telling you how to use the balsam are on the box and again on the pot lid. All I had to do was to 'Apply sparingly along the grain with a soft cloth, gently rubbing the balsam into the wood'. I was to then polish the wood straight away and repeat as necessary.

It all sounded easy enough so I unscrewed the metal lid from the glass jar of balsam. The first thing that I noticed was a strong smell of pine which I found quite pleasant. The balsam was like butter both in colour and texture.

I got a small amount on my cloth and proceeded to apply it to my lounge door, polishing each panel as I cleaned. It certainly lifted out some dirt I can tell you! It was not more than I expected having the log burner; I find that I have to clean the windows more often than I used to as they get very dirty from the soot in the air.

When I had finished cleaning the door it looked lovely and clean and did indeed have a nice sheen on it. In fact from where I am sitting I can see the door in question with the sun shining on it and it looks beautiful.

I also cleaned the pantry door and then I took my little jar upstairs and started on the fitted wardrobes in our room. There are three sets of double doors so there's a lot of wood but I got stuck in having a pause to get my breath back between sets of doors. It was very tiring (but good exercise) as these doors fit from floor to ceiling but again the wood did look lovely when I had finished. Incidentally the smell remained for a short while after I had finished the cleaning but then dispersed quite quickly.

The problem that I have is that I still have a lot of wood to do and I have used about three quarters of my pot of balsam. Basing the estimate on what I have already completed I guess that I would need at least five jars to clean all the wood in the cottage so I think that I need to look for something that is available in larger sizes. Mind you whatever I end up using it will certainly keep me fit.

I would certainly recommend this product as the wood does look lovely after cleaning but it might be a bit expensive for me if I chose to clean all the wood here in the cottage!

Summary: It is hard work but well worth the effort