Retique It Liquid Wood Quart - Stainable Wood Fiber Paint Puts a Fresh Wood Coat (32oz Light)

I'm so annoyed at how well this worked because of the on/off months I spent trying to remove old paint to get this table down to bare wood. Only to give up, find this wood paint, and not only have it look like wood but look better than the natural wood I was trying to sand down to. Stop wasting time and just buy it. It's what you're looking for. Trust me.

I loved the way my project turned out. I didn't try to rush through it. I had white painted cabinets in the bathroom and I wanted a more natural wood look. New cabinets where just too expensive,and the cabinets themselves were good quality, so I thought I'd give this a try. What you see is: one coat of Retiqueit over the white paint,then I took a small stiff paint brush and pulled it through through the surface to get a slight grain look. I chose not to get the graining tool, because the grain was to large and won't look right the rest of the natural wood. I also show one picture of the retiqueit next to the natural wood. The door is thenatural wood and the cabinet is the Retiqueit. It is very close to the existing wood. The natural wood in the bathroom,I belive, is Alder wood. The Alder has a slight redish under tone, and the Retiqueit is a little warmer color than it looks like in the photo. I followed the steps as directed, I scuffed the surface, wiped it down with the water/alcohol mix, and let it dry a bit. I did not stain the cabinets, the color pictured is the lightwood color Retiqueit over white paint. That gave me the color I wanted.

This stuff is really cool. It dries to mimick a wood stain. Easy to use.

Product has a learning curve. It’s verrrryyyy thin, and the edges must not have too much product or it is failure (see pic). I’d recommend several coats BEFORE the final coat with the wood grain tool to get the stain to take, and it does not take well!!!! Gel was a disaster and I strongly encourage you not go that route. It entirely covered my grain and I had to sand and entirely start over.Penetrating stain worked much better, but it was light. Several coats were required. I will say, it does look like wood. But I ended up having to start over two times between the edges looking low quality and the gel stain.In the first coats, long, smooth brush strokes. The final application where you use the wood grain tool, I would apply the product with a brush starting in the middle and and going out. When you use the wood grain tool, use long strokes as straight as possible. The wood grain tool creates grain anyway so it isn’t necessary to have the long strokes suggested, and it was a big mistake in my world.But the product itself is pretty amazing. It does look just like Wood. I was impressed. Wish it was thicker, but honestly it’s amazing what it did to particleboard.

Works surprisingly well.

It does not work as described.. I tried not sanding and then painting this on. It just scratches right off. Maybe if you sand first,but then defeats the purpose of this product.

Don’t over work the stain. A little goes a long way.

Overall, this is a pretty cool product. For the project I did, I would give it a 2.0 - 2.5, but rated the product higher because I know how I will use this moving forward.The instructions pretty much say, “Clean it. Paint it on, let it dry for two hours, then paint another coat”. It does say you can lightly sand the surface if it is slick, but does not define what types of surfaces should be lightly sanded. It does not say anything about priming the surface. Following these instructions leaves the product kind of “spotty” and not smooth as if you were refinishing or finishing furniture. It is like a Monet…looks great from a distance, but you can clearly see the flaws and the mess up close. Thankfully, the piece I chose to refinish with this product is not in a place that has high foot traffic in my house, so I’m good with the results.I cannot stress enough how much the instructions should encourage you to sand the surface. The instructions make it sound as if it’s optional. Priming is also a very good idea.Now, moving forward…I will use this product totally different. I’ve refinished kitchen cabinets in the past and will pretty much follow that process with this product moving forward. My kitchen cabinets have been refinished for three years with no damage or chips to them.For those that want to know the process I will use moving forward with this product, here it is:1. Clean the surface with tsp (you can get it at Home Depot. It’s pink.)2. Sand the surface to make it rough. If doing it by hand, you could probably get away with a 120 grit or higher. You don’t need to sand it hard, just roughen the surface.3. Brush the dust off the surface. If you want, wipe the surface it again with the tsp (your choice…just don’t drench it, wipe it).4. Prime the surface with either cabinet/furniture or kitchen/bath/trim primer (again, you can get this at Home Depot). I would use the kitchen/bath/trim primer if the furniture you are refinishing is in a high traffic area. Make sure you give the primer the time to dry. You want it completely dry. I applied two coats of primer to my cabinets. It’s up to you if you want to apply one or two coats.5. Apply two coats of the Retique. The second coat should be good to go with the graining tool. If it’s not, apply a third coat and use the graining tool with it.6. Stain it with water based stain (I used Minwax from Lowes…pick your color and they will tint it for you). You will probably need to do multiple coats of stain to get your desired color. DO NOT USE OIL BASED.7. Apply 2-3 coats of a water based poly/clear coat (I used Minwax from Lowes). Again, DO NOT USE OIL BASED.Hopefully this helps for those diy’ers like me.