Just realized thrift store furniture polish works better than the fancy stuff
I was always skeptical of those random bottles of furniture polish you find at Goodwill for like $2. My grandma swore by that old can of Pledge she got at a yard sale in 1992, but I thought she was just being cheap. Then last month my coffee table looked all dusty and dull, and I grabbed a $1.50 bottle of some brand I never heard of from the thrift store. Figured what the heck, it's only a buck fifty. Turns out it cleaned up the wood way better than the expensive spray I usually buy at Target. No streaks at all and the shine lasted like two weeks. Has anyone else found a random cleaning product at a thrift shop that actually outperformed the store bought stuff?
That old stuff really is a gamble though. I'd test it on a hidden spot first, especially if the bottle's been sitting around for decades with who knows what kind of sediment settled in there.
lilycraig is right about that old 80s polish stuff, I actually have a theory that they used way stronger chemicals back then that worked better. But you gotta be careful though, my aunt grabbed a vintage bottle of something called "Old English" or maybe it was "Dutch Oil" from a thrift store last year and it left a sticky residue on her mahogany table that took forever to get off. Not all old stuff is a win, some of it just sits on top of the wood instead of soaking in. Still, when you find the right one it feels like you cheated the system or something.
My buddy Jake grabbed a half-used bottle of some 80s looking wood polish at a garage sale for 50 cents and his beat up dining table looks like it belongs in a showroom. He swears he’ll never buy the new stuff again.