Whoops I Had A Spill!
So you cooked up a storm or had some friends over and you have spilt some red wine or you left some turmeric paste on the bench, what happens now?
The team here at SCK thought it might be fun to do a little experiment and show you instead of just explaining what will happen.
Engineered stone is porous and although laminate is not as porous, both services need care when you spill and leave liquids etc that might stain your benchtops. Most surfaces are rated for 24 hours against things like red wine and you can do more research on the websites for each brand of what they recommend and are rated for.
If you are not sure what you material or brand have, then we will have provided that information in the copy of your paperwork or you can contact us and depending on when it was installed we will be able to provide that information for you.
PLEASE NOTE -It’s important that you try not to use anything too abrasive when trying to clean a stain as this can change the finish of your bench top and this cannot be fixed.
24 HOURS
First we tried wine and turmeric paste for 24 hours and we had no issues removing both red wine and turmeric from both engineered stone and laminate in the brands we use with just a household bench top cleaner such as warm water and soap or spray and wipe and soft cloth.
OVER A WEEKEND
Next we did our experiment on Friday morning and then went about trying to remove it on Monday afternoon with honestly more success that we were expecting.
This is what the samples looked like after the weekend and then with just brushing the excess off.
We then used a series of cleaners with medium pressure and rubbing with a soft cloth, but nothing abrasive until the end. See below the results at each stage.
Spray and Wipe and soft cloth
All of the laminate samples in the different brands and finishes we use came clean with the spray and wipe and a soft cloth. Picture shows the sample we stained and a new one.
The engineered stone was not as successful and some of the certain stone and finishes were better than others. Anything that had a very matt finish did not do as well. It was very obvious that the turmeric was more of an issue than the wine. Pictures show the one we stained with a clean one beside it for comparison.
Methylated Spirits and a soft cloth
Metho was our next go to and it did work a little bit more on certain finishes.
Caesarstone Cream Cleanser
Caesarstone have their own cream cleaner that they recommend (other brands probably do too but we only had the Caesarstone one to try). This one has a very fine, hardly noticeable to the eye, grit to it and we did rub quite hard in the end for a short period of time to see if it made anydifferent but we did not rub hard enough to change the finish.
Overnight Jiff then soft cloth
Lastly we tried a trick one of our staff Claire always uses at home on everything if she has a stain on house hold items, we put a generous amount of Jiff on top of the entire stain and left it overnight to dry and then wiped it down with a wet, soft cloth the next day. We were quite surprised this and the above worked and got the tumeric and wine out of all but one sample. We then went hard with the Jiff and a more abrasive cloth on that one sample and you can see it was the only one still at the end that did not pass as gone, at least to the eye. This does not mean trying the Jiff, for example, again several times might not work or other methods but at this stage we thought our experiment had proven it's point. The stone samples were a range of gloss to matt and even one of the printed on stone samples. We will note that it is hard to see in the photos but can report that the last photo is the only sample that our whole staff could not tell the difference between the stained sample and the clean sample and although the photo doesn't show it much, it was faint but noticeable.
Conclusion:
So although we hope you/we never have a accident like in this experiment, accidents do happen and its good to know that the surfaces did do quite well in this experiment with the exemption of a very matt white.
We do feel though, it does back up the advice that we give to all our clients of always design a kitchen to your lifestyle, so if your family are prone to spills or leaving stainable items on your benchtop it would be best to look at laminate to prevent issues for yourself as it is not as porous.
Please note that this was just an experiment for our benefit and we would recommend that if you have an issue that you should follow the recommendation of the manufacturer and contact them for advice which we did not do. Our choices were made from conversations we have had with clients and reps from the different companies over the years and may not be the best option.
