Water-Based Gel Stains by Retique It, White Wash, 32oz Stain

amazing , so easy and it comes out beautiful

I used this to transform a fake light wood countertop into darker wood. It was my first time, so it was an adventure. The product itself works great and really does look like wood. One mistake I made (user error) was using painter tape, which ended pulling up some of the paint that was already so perfect. :( But I was able to patch up those spots, and it just made the wood look a little more rustic and reclaimed. Next time, I'll forgo any taping off, because it's water-based and I can just clean up anything it touches with just a wet paper towel or Q-tip (which I ended still needing to do anyway). I did also buy a top coat for a little more sheen and protection. Not sure it needed it, as a top coat is built in to the product, but since I'll be placing things directly on top of it and moving stuff around, I wanted it to be a little more protected.

Good stuff! I want to do my kitchen cabinets but was hesitant. So I decided to dfo my 25 yr old microwave cabinet first. I mean, if it turned out terrible, no loss I was going to throw it out anyway. It turned out very nice, I'll probably keep it another 25 yrs😁 and I will be moving on to the cabinets now. It's easy but make sure your starting with a clean surface. If it's a very shiny surface I scuff sand first for better adhesion. I used (pecan) 3 coats wood paint, 1coat gel stain, 3 coats polycrylic...... UPDATE Sept. 17, 2025...finally finished the kitchen cabinets!! Love the new look! A lot of work but saved thousands not having to buy new cabinets. Well worth it!

Inherited a wood table that had formica on top. It was sentimental so we wanted to fix it up. Took off the formica and sanded it down, and it was pretty spotty as you can see. Only choice was to paint it, but my wife found this product so we thought we’d try it. And if it was bad we’d just paint over it, and it honestly turned out amazing.The table top kit comes with a pretty crappy paint brush and polyurethane top coat, so we bought those separately. But it’s pretty straight forward. The first paint you put on is very light, and then you paint a stain over it and use a grain tool to make the grain appearance. I ended up just using the smaller grain tool for the whole table. And we ended up painting two additional coats of the stain over the “grain” to get the color we wanted. The paint and stain had real wood in it (don’t ask how), but it made the table feel and act like real wood. Then we sealed it with polyurethane and it turned out incredibly. Would absolutely recommend.Also to note: I tested a regular wood stain on part of the table and it stained like normal wood, in case you’re wondering.

I bought the pickled oak for reference and used all of the materials except the darker stain. I used a walnut stain on top of this for a more warmer color. Even without the stain I used separate from this kit, this kit is absolutely beautiful. It really looks like wood. For some of the comments that had difficulty, I feel its user error. It is a slow, step by step process to put a light coat at each step then let it dry. The directions were easy to understand and I simply can’t believe it turned out this well. Try it out!

Some things sound too good to be true, and this is one of them. I really wanted to trust this product, but alas, it was not to be. I tried it on a door to cover a terrible faux-pas faux paint job done by the previous owners -the picture of the door as it shows dark brown. Hopefully the photos will come out in the order I added them to illustrate this journey.To find out the nature of the existing paint, I gave it the acetone test. The paint was water based as it had a residue with acetone and alcohol.Retique makes claims to cover laminate countertops, cabinets, metal, previously painted surfaces, I prepped the door like they said to in the video, scuff-sand it and clean it with alcohol, which I did. Then, I added 2 coats of the liquid wood. It looked decent so far, though it started to peel around the knob (closeup photo). I removed that, cleaned it, sanded, and painted on more and it seemed to stay after that, though it did concern me. I let it dry overnight.The next day was stain day - as I was running the wood raining tool down the door, the wood started coming off with it to reveal the paint underneath. I was able to easily pull it off with my fingernail.I had big plans for this and was going to use this on my cabinets and a table too, I am really glad I did not. I will have to do it the right way and strip whatever is there. If it cannot stick to this paint, I do not trust it to stick to anything else.I can't get my weekend back unfortunately, but at least I will be able to get my money back. Honestly, I wish I could charge the manufacturer for my door because it looks worse than it did before and I have a giant mess to clean up.

Let coats dry for 24 hours between recoating otherwise youll end up with sticky chairs like me, colour nice

I love this kit! I was pleasantly surprised how awesome it turned out. I used Dark Oak and this small area used 1 and half kits. You can buy stains, primer or top coat individually so I would suggest buying a kit then just buying additional stain (which is what you will run out of first) and top coat separately to save money. I hope it holds up because it looks awesome.