We have an old wood table that has been used and abused for years. Bringing it out over the holidays for card playing, I commented how badly damaged it was and wished I knew how to remove the hideous white heat stains that marred the top. While talking I’m quickly covering the surface with a linen trying to hide the mess.

How did they get there? These white cloudy marks were caused by placing hot dishes directly on the surface. It’s been damaged like this for several years.
A few are from Chinese food takeout containers and another was caused by pizza boxes. It seems the heat from the container scorches or somehow steams the finish.
This is why we should always make sure to place potholders or folded towels on the tabletop first before setting hot food down. We may know this, but someone in the home forgot and so–here we are.
That wasn’t all though, there were also some watermark rings caused by setting coffee cups and glasses of soda directly on the surface. You name it–this piece of furniture was covered in it. Like I said–it’s been abused over time!
The good news is that the damage doesn’t need to be permanent, there is indeed a way to repair this and it’s not that difficult nor is there a need for any special products.
Even though I was dealing with an old piece of furniture that only held sentimental value, I understand the stress someone might be experiencing over a piece that is newer or more expensive.
The picture at the right (bottom) is a snap of the repaired table, all discoloration is gone (there is some glare but it’s due to image quality). One of these days I’ll figure out the camera and take better pictures–the wood has a dark finish but you’d never know it from these pictures!
What did I do to fix the problem? While setting out the table (as mentioned above in the introduction), a relative gave me this curious piece of advice:
- For the scorch marks, just take an iron and apply heat to the cloudy blotches, they’ll disappear!
Terrifying, right? But it’s an old table that we have shoved in a corner so with fingers crossed, I decided to take the chance and give it a try.
Success! How I Removed Heat Stains From Wood Furniture
I outlined the steps below in case you’d like to give this a shot too. It’s pretty aggressive so if it’s too risky for your comfort, don’t worry! I have some other ideas listed here as well (it’s probably best to start with those first).
- The first thing I did was wash the wooden surface and dry it well.
- Next, I took a clean, white cotton towel that wasn’t too thick and placed it over the scorch marks.
- Taking an old iron set to high dry heat, I carefully place it directly over the stain (with the towel in between for protection).
- I let it sit for close to a minute, checked, and nothing happened. The damage was still there.
- I kept reapplying the hot iron with no results, but once I turned the steam on–that’s when the magic happened. The marks literally disappeared!
- I couldn’t believe it and it defied logic to me–wouldn’t the steam cause more harm? All I know is that it worked.
- I was quick to wipe away any moisture and water left on the surface after each treatment.
- Added: A few of the comments below recommend finishing things off by wiping in a bit of olive oil once successfully getting rid of the stains, this helps nourish the wood and give it a bit of love after all that it’s been through.
A few days later and the surface is still great. The cloudy discolorations haven’t returned. I keep running my hand across the tabletop and I can’t feel any damage or change to the finish. I’m amazed at how easily this cleaned up–it’s a totally different piece of furniture now!
Caution: I have no idea if this affects the finish, I’m not an expert. It’s something I tried and worked very well in this case.
Update (2023): I first published this here on Tipnut in January, 2007, so it’s been over 15 years since I wrote this article. There have been a few more stains develop over the years, but they’re new ones…not the originals mentioned here that were removed. I just go through the step-by-step directions outlined above and I haven’t noticed any long term negative effects to the wood at all. |
Updates
Although many are finding this works on their wood furniture pieces, some are reporting that this makes the problem WORSE (see the comments below).
- The reason for the discrepancy could be what the type of finish is…varnish or shellac.
I believe my old table in this project is varnish, but I haven’t tested it to confirm.
Glorious tips & suggestions have been contributed by many readers and those souls brave enough to test this method. Here’s the condensed version of the possible solutions if this technique is successful in removing the original stain–but then ADDS a permanent outline of the iron:
- Try a lower temperature and move the iron slowly around the location instead of letting it sit (thanks Matthew!).
- Others report success with hot temp & no steam (thanks Flora Monroe!)
- Another suggestion to fix this with just a hot iron hovering over the spots (not laying one down on cloth–but hovering–thanks mark harris, Tom, myf, Roxanne, Diana and Melanie!)–I believe they all used steam for the hover method.
- Also scroll down for Dan’s helpful tip using rubbing or polishing compound instead of the above technique if it’s too scary or aggressive for you.
- Timmer shared that the iron method made things worse, the fix that did the trick: spray furniture polish over top then work it in with extra fine steel wool (carefully so not to take off the existing finish). Next, buff with a clean rag once it dries.
Read the hundreds of comments below for all the feedback people have left and to review the results they experienced. I’m thrilled this tip has helped so many–believe me, I know the state of panic you’re in! Also continuing to organize recommended solutions for those who aren’t experiencing success yet, please drop a note if this worked (or didn’t work) for you :).
More DIY Methods To Try
If the removal technique shared above is a bit too aggressive for you, one of these easy tips may help restore the tabletop to looking brand new again…
- Mix 50/50 toothpaste and baking soda, rub in. Do not use gel toothpaste for this.
- Apply a paste of salt and olive oil, allow to sit several minutes (an hour at most). Wipe off.
- Apply Miracle Whip (Mayonnaise) and wipe away after an hour.
- Mix 50/50 vinegar and olive oil, smear over the watermark.
- Try straight toothpaste (non-gel). Apply with the grain then wipe off.
- Make a paste with baking soda and a few drops of water. Rub in then wipe off. You can also try salt instead of baking soda.
- Rub some Vaseline (or other petroleum jelly) into the watermark and leave overnight. Wash off in the morning.
Amazing!!! My 9 year old gourmet chef son sat a hot dish out of the microwave on my new dining room table and I just wanted to cry… He promptly found your solution. It sounded scary at first but the results were beautiful. You saved my table!!! Thank you so much.
P. S. Not a bad science project either.
My table looks brand new. I’m moving and almost got rid of it!!! I’m so glad I found this!
Link posted of before & after pics of my dining table.
AMAZING!!!! I’m so happy that it worked!
I have another, cherry end table that it didn’t work on….yet. Going to try the dry iron and see what becomes of it!
Happy ironing!!!
😀
LBinGA
Well tickle me pink and call me Elmo… Best trick I’ve learnt in a long time. I just did this only $6,000 dining table after a staff party and it worked in under 10 seconds. Beauty!
It is amazing! We had huge white marks on our table and all of them diappeared. Thanks for the tip!!!
Holy ** this iron steam thing worked like magic, took a few goes, we had ironed a shirt on a dark wooden table on a few layers of sheet and it left big iron marks. I tried the steam trick over a white towel in various ways just hovering, touching and doing long sweeping movements then tried wiping away the moisture before immediately wiping down with olive oil. I am staying in a sublet and would have lost my whole deposit for sure. Thanks everyone for all the advice. You all saved my bacon!!!
wow used the steam iron on a white cotton shirt and poof the white spot was gone i am not one to post to comments but wow thanks for this great tip my table looks 100% better
UNBELIEVABLE! I thought this was the craziest thing I had EVER heard of and it is so unbelievable. i just cannot stop laughing about it! My black table looks like NEW
It worked! I tried to remove a large white spot (hot casserole) left on an oak veneer table . First I tried the iron on a cloth pillowcase with out steam and it didn’t work. I then turned on the steam and left the iron about a quarter of an inch off the cloth on the table. I just held the iron for 10 or 15 seconds at a time and then wiped any condensation off the table. After a few tries the white mark was gone and then we applied a bit of olive oil. Looks great and Mom is very happy with her table!!! Thanks for the tip!
Wow! Amazing! Works like a charm! Took longer for the iron to heat up than for the marks to be gone.
27 September, 2010, Australia. I was skeptical after reading comments from all these happy people, but it actually works a treat – my ruined dining table is like brand new. I took before and after photos if you can allow me to post them on the site.
PS Becky is right. It did take longer for the iron to heat up than for each marks to be gone. They literally disappeared before my eyes.
My husband ironed my son’s school shirt on top of our expensive Pottery Barn dinning table. When I came in, I saw a 10×10 in. white stain mark in the corner he ironed on.
I immediately panicked! I tried Pledge, Murphy oil and mayo, but these did not help at all. My husband calmly googled it and found this site which recommended to use the steam iron, and of course, since the stain had been made by the iron in the first place, i was very reluctant to bring it near the table again.
So, he took a small towel, set the iron to steam, and put it directly on top of the towel for 2-3 seconds. When he lifted up the towel, it was like magic! The white stain was gone and the table was good as new. He repeated this process until all parts of the stain were gone.
The steam iron REALLY WORKS. My hubby saved the day (after he had ruined it).
I normally do not write any comments on websites such as this one, especially when they require you to give your email address. But I felt compelled to write this post because in this case the best solution was not so obvious. For us, it worked perfectly – I hope it works for you too.
Try it on a small area if you still are unsure, but do try this – you can save your table too.
How nervous is everyone trying this for the first time!!!!
It works an absolute treat. Thank you all for posting to
give me the confidence to try it.
I was very skeptical – and am very happy to report that it worked! A huge white spot on my maple dining room table – was lifted with the steam iron and towel process. Thanks very much!
Has anyone tried this on a black table? I have a beautiful black table and the white spots seem to have appeared after some oil was used ont he table and then a hot/moist plate was set on it. I am desperate to fix this but do not want to make it worse.
Jen,
Yes, I have a black Crate & Barrel coffee table and side tables. I had a couple of little white spots about nickle and dime size on the coffee table. I folded a white cotton t-shirt to double it up, used full steam and between medium and high heat setting. I was careful to move the iron and just did a couple of quick passes wiping with the t-shirt between passes. It just took two passes. I think just a few seconds at a time is best. I guess it depends on the size of the spot, but less is more and you can always do more quick passes as it was a little less than 20 seconds total in my case.
Applied lemon oil that contains no wax and it looks great.
WOW! is all I can say. My girlfriend put a hot pot directly on my expensive solid birch, natural coloured, dinning room table and left a 8″ round white burn mark. When I looked at it I thought that she had burnt the clear finish right off. She had called a refinisher to get a quote and they came back with $700 to fix it. I found this amazing tip and gave it a try… because of the severity of the burn it took about 10 mins of steaming it with the iron on full blast on top of a damp towel but I got about 95% of the burn out. OUTSTANDING! Thanks for publishing this tip!
Thank you – I have had my moms maple table for years and it was covered with white stains – THEY ARE ALL GONE – white flannel piece of material, ironed for maybe 5-10 seconds with steam – and gone.
couldn’t be any easier.
Fantastic! This worked perfectly on our beech wood table also. I was absolutely disgusted to find a huge white ring on our table which cost a couple of grand. The mark had been there for a couple of months after a dinner party and we had resigned ourselves to a total refinish of the surface. I was not too keen to use direct heat and decided to ‘hover’ the steam iron about 2cm above the mark. Literally within 10 seconds the mark had dissapeared, just a wipe down and it was gone without a trace.
Fantastic tip! 🙂
It’s been over two months since I have been contemplating using this method to gt heat marks out of my dining table. I was overly skeptical being a guy. I finally gave in and tried it a few minutes ago. The white heat marks were gone in less than 10 seconds…maybe like 7 to be more precise….WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW…Thank you. Now I can go ahead and sell the set since I wanted to get rid of it for a while. But the heat stains were prevnting me from getting it sold.
Warning…
I hovered the iron above the table and used the steam. This took the white away right away but took what looks like a layer of the varnish or laquer (whatever it is) off and left the iron imprint even without it touching the table. OOoooh, I was mad. But then I used a towel and pressed the iron with steam in circles for a few seconds and it took the imprint away but it still made the table look “dull” wherever the iron had steamed. I rubbed olive oil over it since I didn’t have vegetable oil and it shined right up. I wiped the oil in really well. It looked great. I left it like that until the next day and then cleaned the table as usual and the dullness came back 🙁
It is better than the white stains but for me, it didn’t look like it did originally so be forewarned.
Wow… Tried it… Works like a charm! Thanks for the tip!
It worked AFTER I rubbed the entire table down with 2 parts olive oil and 1 part lemon juice. It made it worse at first but I just continued to alternate between the iron and quickly rubbing it with the oil. I think the table was just parched and it was grabbing up the water like crazy! I replaced that with oil and it looks great!
I wish I had read this a few years back. I had white rings on my bombay coffee table and I was told to use furniture oil and sandpaper. Most of the rings are gone, but now I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of the sandpaper scratches.
This tip worked beautifully on a mango wood table we have, but took some adjusting on a our sheesham wood coffee table. The table’s finish is only wax, so the ironing removed the heat stain, but also dried out the finish, making the table top lose its color and luster. However, after I “ironed” the whole top, I put a couple of coats of Howard Feed-N-Wax (amazing, found at most hardware stores), and the table looked like new.
Thanks so much for the tip. It turned something bad into a rather interesting and successful science experiment!
Holy cow, it worked REALLY well. Saved the look of our family dining table after we set the hot lid from our rice-cooker on the bare wood. It looks like new.
This is a miracle! Works in less than a minute. My mother-in-law was on my case for days over my dining table. And now the stains are gone, made my day!
Thanks a lot for this amazing tip
Wow – I tried this on my espresso diningroom table and was amazed. It worked!! I am so happy because I thought it was ruined!! Thanks for the tip.
What a great tip! Thanks so much, I was disappointed in every thing else I tried and the iron did the trick…in about 15 seconds! THANKS!
My husband got me a table off craigslist for free..beautiful, but had white marks and rings all over the entire table. That’s why they got rid of it. Well, the iron worked and I have an amazing dining room set for free! Thank you for the amazing tip!!! 😀
Tried the iron on an real old solid cherry table. Made a lot worse.Did try mayonnaise first. Didn’t help the spot but give a nice shine.
I tried the Ion trick and it worked great, I just hovered the ion with a lot of steam over those white spot and they disappeared in 30 seconds. Thank you so much for your infomation. it saved me a lot of money as I thought that my table was cheap and that I was in need to purchase a better quality table. It is great to have my table back.
Started with the high heat and steam, made it a little worse. So I turned the heat and steam down on low and then turned the heat and steam up in small intervals until I say the old and new white marks go away…it took a little time but it looks so much better now. Thanks
I am amazed that it worked!! I tried the mayo first and that didn’t work, then I tried the iron and worked like a charm. I don’t understand how heat caused it to happen and heat took it away, had I not seen I wouldn’t have believed it. Thanks for the tip 🙂
Ok, so I definitely have the shellac or lacquered finish table. The steam made mine worse, too. 🙁 I don’t see any solutions for this type of finish….anyone?!?!?!?
We sat the Thanksgiving turkey on our table still in the roaster on several towels thinking that would protect it, but we still ended up with two saucer sized white splotches in the tables finish. I’m happy to report that the steam iron did the trick. Amazing! Thank you!
While preparing for Thanksgiving, we placed several items including a warm pie plate on our kitchen table. After a few minutes we moved the pie plate and saw a 9 inch in diameter white stain on the table. We tried the iron and it worked!!! Thank you!!!We will share this stain solution with our friends and relative.
It worked on my 43 year old hutch to that I used as a sideboard at Thanksgiving for thr FIRST time! I put hot food bowls, but had cloths undernesth them, but obviously not enough. I tried ironing with a white t shirt, and steam. It worked miraculously fast- thanks so much!
didn’t help me one bit tried many different things that i read in the post but all i have now are a bunch of iron marks. no matter if i use steam or if i completely emptied the iron out. i have a dark wood varnished table. so now is back to good old fashion sanding and refinishing. thanks anyways.
Worked magically! At first, no results, so I turned up the heat and after another minute it was gone! Again, it was hot pizza left on the table! Thanks!
Amazing! My girlfriend had used my dining table for an ironing board (god knows why), leaving white marks in the dark finish. I have an IKEA pine table with dark stain finish. Using a white cotton cloth, iron set on high steam, I hovered over the marks for 20-30 seconds. A miracle! The white marks are gone. I followed up with some walnut oil to polish, and the table looks great!
I’m a huge skeptic of ‘help tips’, but this one was right on for me. If it doesn’t work on your table, it’s probably the type of finish on your wood.
Thanks again!
Bloody hell how did that work???????
no more noticable stains on our antique mahogany table
next job to re-iron and get a damn good wax polish
no more table cloths for me when people come round!!!
One thing to add to the discussion: I had tried rubbing compound (which worked on similar problems in the past) but it did nothing this time. I used the tea towel/steam iron approach and most of the mark went away, leaving a brighter mark on one side of the former spot (on a 1930’s era buffet with old finish). Figured, “what the heck” and tried the rubbing compound (one of those catalog “magic” white ring removers that are basically jewelers’ rouge in a flannel cloth) and it wiped out the remaining stain.
Conclusion: there really are two types of stain that look alike. The steam works for some; the ring removers work for others. Between the two, I got my buffet back!
THIS IS GENIUS!
We had friends round for festive Sunday lunch – clearing up afterwards I discovered that despite our feeble place mats, the dish with the roast in it had left a huge semi circle white scorch mark on my gorgeous teak dining table. Gutted!
Searched the web, found this link, read a zillion of the comments, still took an hour to get the guts up to try and it because it sounded insane but finally found the nerve to try it and BINGO, table fixed!
I put a clean teatowel over the stain, hovered the steam iron above the towel and wiped with the towel after every steaming and the whole stain was gone in five minutes! Wish I’d taken pictures now, it’s like magic, thanks so much for posting this tip!
We used only canola (vegetable oil), and it worked. Four year old oak butcher block kitchen island. Thanksgiving turkey roaster was placed on a dish towel on the island – directly out of the oven! Carved the turkey while still in the roaster and had the meal. During cleanup is when we picked up the roaster and noticed a whitish spot about 9″x9″. Searched and found this site and read multiple recommendations. Being a bit leery of using the iron, we thought we’d start by wiping a thin coat of oil on the spot and let it sit overnight and see what happens. Next morning the spot was gone.
The heat did damage the varnish/urethane finish, the area looks a little duller than the rest of the island, but the obvious white spot is nowhere to be seen. Very livable.
Appreciate all the comments others have posted. Thanks
OMGosh, I tried the hot iron on a terry cloth dish towel. I had several huge white marks left from hot soup bowls on Christmas, plus some older white spots that had been there for years. It worked like magic. I did not have to use steam, just got the wood hot and the white spots just melted away. I did check every 15 to 20 seconds and wiped away moisture but other than that just heating the wood worked like a charm. Thank you SO much for this tip.
I placed a hot paper plate on my sister’s wood table (not sure of the type of wood or the finish). A huge ring mark was left! I tried toothpaste and using mayonnaise overnight; neither worked in the slightest.
Once I used the steam and hot towel method I began to breathe a litter better. It took me some time (definitely not a few minutes like other people). I also did one pass with a paper bag. The ring is not 100% gone… I could have kept trying but I felt as if I was pushing my luck. The wood was finely cracked and didn’t know if it was already there or from me. I didn’t want to further damage the wood from moisture or excessive heat.
I rubbed the table with vegetable oil once I was finished. Overall it looks really good and my sister is pleased (THANK GOODNESS because… whoo! She is something to deal with)!
My wife was going to kill me now she’s putty in my hands!!!
Thanks for the tip, I can’t believe how well this worked, you can’t even tell where the spot was!!
Thanks!!! The iron worked like a charm.
OMG – The Iron trick did the job!!!! Amazing!!!
thanx for the great tip, i put a flannel over the white marks on our dinning table and hovered over it and ironed it with steam, years of marks vanished b4 my eyes.trully amazing!!!!!