How to Make Wood Floor Polish (Beeswax and Essential Oils)

These days, wood floor polishers are expensive and often they don’t work that well! If you’re tired of spending money on every brand of wood floor polish, try making a tried-and-true one of your own. Here is a step-by-step guide to making an effective homemade wood floor polish.

Ingredients

1/4 cup of grated beeswax
ceramic bowl or measuring cup
1/4 a cup of turpentine
Screw-top jar
(optional) A few drops or either lavender, orange, lemon, or pine oil extract or essential oil

Steps

Add the beeswax to the bowl. Using a double boiler bowl is fine if you have one.
Put the bowl in a pan of boiling water. Melt the beeswax. When the beeswax is melted, remove it from the water.
Once off the heat, stir until the beeswax starts to cool. Add the turpentine and stir through until it is well mixed in. If using, add the extract or essential oil drops when the polish is soft and cool.
Transfer the mix to a suitable storage container with a lid. Label and date. It will last 4-5 months in cool area.^[1]
Use the wood floor polish as follows:
- Clear a floorspace and be sure it won’t need to be walked across for a number of hours.
- Using a sponge, spread the polish over the wooden floor.
- Leave sitting on the floor for 12-24 hours.
- Polish by hand or with a floor polisher.
- Buff as usual.

Warnings

Keep kids and animals away from the hot beeswax at all times.
Please remember that once you apply this to your floor, it will require buffing, and inhibits applying a urethane type finish to the floor later, without a full sanding job.

Things You’ll Need

Ceramic bowl or heatproof measuring cup
Saucepan or double boiler
Screw-top jar

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Sources and Citations

Cross checked against Casey Keilar, The Complete Book of Natural Housekeeping, p. 29, (2000), ISBN 1-57990-229-4

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