Get rid of annoying ring marks on your wooden tables with this handy cleaning hack.
If you’ve ever left a cup, glass, or mug on a wooden table without a coaster, you’ll know the sinking feeling that comes with lifting it up and finding a large circular stain on the surface where the cup was sitting.
Cup stains, also known as water stains, are caused by moisture getting trapped within the wood’s finish. This creates white or light-coloured rings or clouds on your table, which look unsightly.
Anyone who has dealt with these stains before knows how tricky they can be to clean. You can’t just wipe them away, and because they’re caused by issues under the surface of the wood, they won’t be shifted by regular cleaning methods.
But according to cleaning fans on social media, there is an easy way to lift these marks quickly. What’s more, you won’t need to buy any fancy equipment, and it’ll cost you barely anything to do.
The hack was uncovered after a person on Reddit shared a picture of a table that was almost completely covered in white cup stains. They asked for advice on how to remove the marks, and people were quick to offer their suggestions.
One of the most popular recommendations was to simply get a “slightly wet” towel and place it over the stains before running an iron over the towel.
Someone said: “Get a slightly wet towel, place it over stains, and use an iron over it. Works every time for me. May have to repeat a few times to get all the stains out. I don’t know why, but a slightly wet towel works better than a dry one for me.”
Another expanded: “This is the way, has worked for me before. Use a cotton tea towel (those thin kitchen towels that absorb water quickly). Iron needs to be on low heat. Gently move the iron on the tea towel so the heat can penetrate and release the trapped water. Increase the heat very gradually if needed. Go low and slow, so you don’t scorch the table.”
The DIY trick will barely cost you any money as most of us will own an iron and a tea towel already. The only cost would be the water to wet the towel and fill the iron, and the electricity to run the iron.
Other suggestions included using rubbing alcohol, a petroleum jelly like Vaseline, and even, bizarrely, some suggested using smearing mayonnaise over the stains to help lift them away.
We’d recommend doing a patch test before trying any hacks on your furniture – this should hopefully reveal whether your items will react well to the techniques or not.
