How to Remove a White Heat Stain from Wood Furniture

The internet is full of suggestions for removing a heat stain from furniture. Everything from rubbing combinations of toothpaste, baking soda, salt, olive oil, vinegar, petroleum jelly and even mayonnaise. Do they work?

There are also as many suggestions that the fixes don't work or that it makes the problem worst. I wanted to try an easy method first without refinishing the tabletop.

In this video I document the easy DIY solution I tried using a hot iron and a tea towel to remove the mark from the finish. Can you make the problem worse? YES! watch the video!!

This method may not work for everyone. If this solution works for you please click the like button and leave a comment. And if it doesn't work for you let us know in the comments as well.

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[sierralopez]

Five years later and this video is still saving lives, thank you so much! My mother will never know I almost ruined her coffee table.

[decemberschild]

You just saved my marriage of 35 years!

[MelBDavidson]

Saved me from my Mom getting mad at me, even though it’s my own table. Thank you Sir. 🙏🏻

[dr-wb]

Hi, I just put a hot microwaved paper plate with a slice of very hot pizza on it on my nice end table. It left that fog stain. I thought for sure that I had damaged the surface and would have to sand it and refinish it. I went to YouTube and typed in "heat stain on wood" and the first video was yours. I did the iron thing and it worked! Thanks!
Stay safe and healthy during this health crisis.

[saaralusher]

Worked for us! No steam, set the iron to "cotton" mode. Only took 8-10 scrubs. This literally saved our marriage.

[itskristieali]

8 years later and still an MVP video! Saved two of my tables. Thank

[erikar]

I would like to add that this also worked on my hardwood floor. I left the steam mop on my hardwood floor to long and it left a white mark. After searching the internet i stumbled upon this video, and much to my surprise this worked!

[jameskimball]

Worked! Amazing! Cotton Cloth, High Heat, No Steam, Kept the iron moving. I did a dozen or so sets of reheating the iron. For the first four or five sets you think it's not working then suddenly you start to see the change. Much gratitude to you!

[saralivingston]

I am yet another person for whom it worked!! We bought a nice solid wood table secondhand from an individual. The stains were mostly faint but years old. At first I used just heat on a cotton (hot) setting. When after 8 minutes or so it didn't seem to be doing anything, I sprayed some water on my tea towel. After checking and spraying twice, the stain was gone!! Same method on the other stains - I got the wood hot with just heat, then sprayed the towel. Keep the iron moving, and move the towel maybe every other time you check. Now we have no more heat stains!! I am so grateful for this video and all the comments, that gave me confidence to try it!

[charleneborg]

Worked wonders on stains that were more than 6 years old. We almost threw the table away, this video was our last resort. Thanks!

[MissBelle]

You saved my dining table my grandfather made. We had a few minor heat stains from mugs and pizza boxes but one MAJOR one from a hair dryer. Everything gone in 20 mins! I now am going to get some sandpaper, wood sealant & wood varnish and liven up the table again. Thank you SO much, my mum will be super happy!!

[danbarreto]

For those who did the same as I did and skipped through the video to watch the parts I wanted the iron was set to 5 and no steam. After watching the video I was in the same situation. This was my last effort to do something to my counter height table from Ashley furniture that looked pretty similar to the one in the video and was willing to get rid of it if this didn't work. I used a red shop towel and it also worked. What I will say is that move the iron and the towel around frequently. It took me around 10-15 minutes so you will need to be patient. Leaving the iron in one spot did the same as in the video where it started to leave the towel mark. I wish I could upload the pictures to show the difference. Since this table is several years old I added Murphy's oil at the end just to give it some extra shine. You really have to get down at the table level to be able to tell that there was anything there before but this helped so much. Thanks for sharing!

[henrychen]

This actually worked!! Now my parents won’t be mad at me xD. What I did was I pressed a hot iron on the spot for 10 seconds or so, left the heat to absorb the stain for another 30 seconds or so, and it just vanished!! Thank you so much!

[malcolmclarke]

I can't believe how well this worked. I had two nasty stains on our kitchen table from my kids taking things directly from the microwave. One of them was over 6 months old and it was gone in less then 10 minutes. Thank you so much. I was afraid I would have to strip the entire surface. Who would have ever thought of applying heat to a mark that was created by heat!

[elainee]

Worked like magic. Thanks so much. I was asked to sell my mothers' oak table and it had 7 white heat spots on it substantially reducing the value. I used a linen tea towel 1 thickness and an iron set to wool (medium hot) no steam. Circle the iron over the spot briskly for 8 seconds. All the spots were cured in under a minute. Best repair hack I've ever found on the net.

[colettedunne]

Hi, Google brought me to your video, and all I can say is a huge THANKYOU, I have a large coffee table made from recycled Oregon wood, which I've had for 20 years, and I've had cup circles on that table for about 12 years now, I viewed your video 30 mins ago and thought I'd give it a go before sanding and restaining . Well I'm glad I did, because it actually worked, in about 10 minutes.
I love the table so much, and thanks to you I've saved a lot of time and I can't thank you enough.
God bless you and happy new year.

[HawkeyeHikes]

THANK YOU! I'm glad I watched this before I started rubbing ashes and mayonnaise on my night stand! Great video! thank you again

[jungmanriver]

Unbelievable! It worked!! My stain was two white misted circles on a dark wood surface. I did very short bursts of hot iron on an unfolded tea towel on each segment and bit by bit it disappeared! Thank you!!

[smithparker]

so fortunate to find your post, I tried your method and set heat at max level 6 of my iron, the heat stains on my table are all disappeared after 2 minutes! Huge thanks!

[therovingi]

Just checking out of a 5-star hotel in Europe and used this trick to fix the large teapot mark accidentally left on the antique table! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!