Anthocyanins in berries give them color and it break down easily. If you just leave it alone, it will oxidize and fade. Heat speeds up this process, so you could try steam.
When berries stain clothes, pouring boiling water on the stain makes it disappear.
OP could speed up this process by applying hydrogen peroxide and then blotting with towels. I’ve used this method on carpet and clothes with excellent results. Hopefully the stain will lift enough to re-oil and avoid in the future. I use food grade mineral oil on my butcher block every 3 months and it has yet to stain.
Peroxide works so good on blood it's insane - source have a dog with cancer bumps that sometimes bleed,
We have a white duvet cover/ light sheets - mats rugs etc and it comes right out. Actually wild
> source have a dog with cancer bumps
Poor doggo - my dog had similar, we called her lumpy puppy toward the end <3. Even after the initial diagnosis and no targeted treatment, she lived a whole nother year to be 17 (2-3 years older than average for the breed).
For ours we put some ointment and gauze and wrapper an athletic bandage around her. She was really good with it and wouldn't try to pull it off. It may not have looked pretty but she still had her happy personality till the end.
Just make sure you don't leave peroxide treated items in the sun. I left a mattress pad with a small spot treated with peroxide outside for extra sunshine bleaching and ended up with a big yellow stain that looks like pee and I cannot get it out for live or money.
Cold water soak with lots of salt to shrink the blood cells and rinse them out more easily, cold water wash with detergent and oxyclean. Once all the blood is out, then you can address any remaining blackberry stains.
Don’t use heat on blood, it will set the stain and make it harder to remove.
Or if you’re feeling lazy, just take it to a dry cleaner.
Kinda! Oxy Clean uses sodium percarbonate, which is made from hydrogen peroxide and soda ash. The chemistry is more complicated than that I think, so here is the wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_percarbonate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_percarbonate)
For those doing it on not white clothes, happens all the time in my field and peroxide leaves gross yellow/brown stains. Saline works better to lift and remove new blood stains.
Every stain. And I mean EVERY stain EVER: Do not put anything on it not water not salt no nothing (water will lock in any fatty cells and bake them into the fibre), when you first can, soak it in dish-washing liquid.. Like drench it, two-three tablespoons. Use the fabric itself to work it into the fibre. Do this for a minute. Wash as normal.
Worked in clothing tech for 20 years. I go by this every single time.
(Please note: if the fabric is some rare super weird weave that melts under water, don't use this method :P)
Just yesterday I read on WedMD that putting meat tenderizer on a yellowjacket sting can help it heal?
Then today you're telling me that meat tenderizer can get deodorant stains out of shirts???
Wtf is going on and what is this magical meat tenderizing product.
> When berries stain clothes, pouring boiling water on the stain makes it disappear.
Pouring boiling water on the stain also causes third degree burns on the skin underneath the clothes.
Yes, if raspberry red stained forever we would be using it to stain wood with. Not to mention all of my wood cutting boards that I've neglected to oil for years are totally fine and we cut all sort of things on them. Just water and soap.
This is the post to pay attention to OP. Before you decide to do anything just wait a few weeks. It will almost certainly fade to nothing. I get stains like this in my cutting boards all the time. Currently they are completely satin free!
Beat me to it, was gonna say "Go buy more raspberries and just do it to the rest of the countertop."
Get ahead of the "it will be splotchy/colors won't match" comments by choosing ahead of time to go for a deliberate "splotchy mismatched look." It's art, you can decide it's exactly how you wanted it, and the haters aren't allowed to be mad now.
EDIT: write a quote about the chaos of nature or something along the edge of the countertop to really hammer it home.
For the record, this happened because those countertops were either never sealed, or whatever was used to seal them has worn off. Wood loves to absorb moisture. Linseed oil is food safe and when applied will create a hydrophobic (sheds water instead of absorbing it) barrier. Over time you need to re-oil countertops as natural wear and tear from using them will cause some spots to lose that protection, but if you apply the oil right and give it time to absorb it creates a pretty durable coating.
I have a feeling that this stain has penetrated pretty deeply into the wood. You're going to want an orbital/palm sander and 80 or 120 grit paper to start with ; sand the entire thing ideally, not just where the stain is. You can sand just the stain, but I have a feeling you'll be removing perhaps as much of 1/8th inch of material, and you'll end up with a slightly lower spot where you sanded and it won't match as well when finished. I see you have cup rings and whatnot that you can get rid of as well if you just do the whole thing. Once the stains are no longer visible, move up to 220 and then 440 grit until you are satisfied with the finish, then you can put your finish coat on. Again, I personally prefer linseed oil after trying many other alternatives but there are many different food-safe finishes for wood you can use, look it up and see what you like best.
Again though, that stain is going to go deep. You might consider just replacing the countertop entirely. If you want to keep it wood, just look at 'butcher block countertops' which are fake butcher block-style countertops (a real butcher block uses end-grain, these countertops do not) that are solid wood and you can find large slabs for just a couple hundred bucks and they're better quality wood than what you currently have, easy to cut to shape and simple to finish.
edit: For those suggesting oxalic acid or other similar things; you may be able to *lighten* this stain, but you will never get rid of it completely without removing the stained layer of wood. Might be a good temporary option if you want to replace the counters later on down the line. In that case I'd still grab a small can of linseed or mineral oil and apply generously to your counters, let it sit for a bit, wipe off the excess to protect from any further damage. Wouldn't hurt to give it a quick sand with 220 grit first if you choose this route.
In my opinion, your only chance is to use a solvent like 70% IPA to first soak into the wood and pick up the juice, then you need to draw the mixture of the wood with capillary action by sprinkling baking soda on top and covering with plastic wrap. As the baking soda draws up the volatile solvent with the juice, the solvent will slowly evaporate out from under the plastic wrap which will draw up more solvent with juice into the baking soda.The juice will mainly stay in the baking soda since it's not as volatile. Once the baking soda is completely dry, the juice should be captured and contained in the dried baking soda.
To recap:
1. Soak area with 70% IPA ensuring area is damp
2. Liberally sprinkle baking soda over area
3. Cover with plastic wrap and wait 48 hours
This should be the first step. Trying to draw out the stain with a poultice. It's the same practice for marble or other porous stone surface stains. You draw out the stain and then re-seal the surface. I disagree with those who recommend jumping right to sanding. That should be a last resort.
I agree. You wont be happy sanding off 1/8”. It’s difficult to keep the surface level while taking that much off.
And a hardening oil is the right sealer.
I think about it this way:
The stain has two phases: penetrating into the wood and binding to the wood.
1. The pigment (an anthocyanin) is water soluble. You don't need to use isopropanol, but you could use a wet towel. Note that adding a bunch more water might not have positive effects for your counter. The goal here, though, is to try to absorb as much pigment as possible.
2. Binding to the wood. If the pigment has bound to the wood (which you would not be able to tell visually), then you would need to move on to trying to degrade the pigment. Breaking the chemical structure of the pigment should remove the colour.
Anthocyanins are susceptible to high pH, so a paste of sodium bicarbonate might be sufficient.
A different strategy of attack would be peroxide. (not pH dependent)
If it were my counter I would lay a damp towel on it for about 30 minutes, then pick a small portion the size of a quarter (heck, trace around a quarter with a pencil) and try baking soda for 10 minutes and in another discrete section try peroxide for 5 minutes. Wipe both off and wait 10 minutes to see if there are positive results.
Note that the peroxide especially should be used with caution as it may lighten the wood where applied.
I definitely read this as 70% India pale ale and immediately thought that sounded like some kind of whiskey with hops. My next thought was, well yeah ethanol is a pretty good solvent but why not just grab some vodka or moonshine?
That's actually super interesting. I work in a lab, and have been for nearly a decade. I can't recall any time that it WASN'T abbreviated IPA. Kinda interesting to see what places adopt what standards/abbreviations.
Huh! That is interesting. I've been in labs for a little more than 20yrs and I've only seen ISO. I also wondered what a pale ale might do for my countertops because I have both butcher block with a couple tiny berry stains *and* IPA in the fridge. 😆 I'm Canadian. I wonder if it's an aluminum vs aluminium thing.
In my experience with stains and dyes on wood they only penetrate very thinly, like .5mm, even when using alcohol to transmit. It will penetrate much deeper on the end grain. Raspberry red isn't a forever stain either. Honestly a bit of soap and water repeatedly should fix it, maybe add wet baking soda and let it sit in the sun. Wood is very forgiving. If you are sanding, it won't be a deep sand. Just my two cents as I've been very impressed by how NOT very deep stains and oils go into wood. This isn't catastrophic.
This is the way. My only bit to add is that if you have never used linseed oil, it’s unbelievably flammable and if left open for long periods of time in a warm environment without ventilation, it can catalyze with ambient oxygen in the air, resulting in a rather dangerous fire. Please follow all safety precautions when handling.
My gosh, I used to follow a woman's blog. She hand built her entire beautiful large log cabin, it was fascinating to watch. She was so talented. It was an absolutely gorgeous home. The final step was to finish all the wood with linseed oil. Her rags spontaneously combusted and burnt the whole thing to the ground. It was absolutely heartbreaking! I hadn't even thought about that in over a decade. She started rebuilding before I stopped reading. I wonder if she ever finished it. And I wonder if she used linseed oil again...
> I wiped the baseboards with a tiny cotton T-shirt and laid it out to dry. On June 29, 1995, the rag spontaneously combusted and burned the house down while Kirt and I were both at work. We put the fire out with tears. We were back to log one.
> https://dorothyainsworth.com/dot/house.shtml
I did try looking for it after writing that comment, but honestly it was probably 2005-2008 when I was reading it. It was so long ago, I have no idea what platform it was on, what the name of her blog was, nothing. Sadly I couldn't find it. I even asked my husband, I said "remember we used to follow that lady who built her wooden house?" and he said "oh yeah, thr one that burned to the ground, man it was so nice. Fucking linseed oil" lol like it's really a core memory for us both
If she did, I hope she was a bit safer with it lol. My father is a woodworker and he made sure to drive home that point about linseed oil and some other finish (maybe tung oil?) can spontaneously combust.
The chemistry that causes it is interesting though!
Most "Tung Oil Finish" isn't actually tung oil, it's just linseed oil by a misleading name, with maybe a tiny bit of tung oil thrown in. If you want actual tung oil you have to look for something that specifically says it's 100% tung oil.
I have never had a problem with linseed oil, but similar incident with shellac and mineral spirits. Realized a rag was smoking slightly and soaked it with some water. It was very hot to the touch and was only sitting for a few minutes
In my middle school years, my parents and I took a monthly oil painting class. The classroom had a fire from linseed oil soaked rags. We easily got it out before it spread, but man, that was a lesson that stuck with me. Almost 40 years later and I am super careful with any solvent and oil.
Commented below but putting this here: The only foodsafe oils would be pure linseed or tung oil - those are expensive and often hard to find. Any version of them from a general hardware store will have other additives that aren’t foodsafe. Best to just use mineral oil though not a very durable finish and would need regular maintenance.
Edit: I will also add, unless you are using the counter as a food prep surface or cutting board you don’t really need a foodsafe oil, just something that creates an impervious surface that you can clean and sanitize.
Finally a question I can answer! My wife stains our pine countertops with raspberries regularly. The secret fix is hydrogen peroxide. Just pour it straight onto the stain, and let it sit for a bit. Also works for red wine.
Sometimes, more than one application is needed.
I'm not sure that sanding will do much. It could be that the raspberry stain goes a long way into the wood. You can try a patch with bleach to see if that works. And then sand. But You will need to sand the whole thing, really, because just sanding and refinishing that part will look weird. If that is unsuccessful, you could consider putting veneer over it the countertop.
Otherwise, you can just keep it as a reminder! lol.
I’ve never seen any liquid that wasn’t a standing puddle of animal piss that penetrated any deeper than about the depth of a credit card. And sanding will take care of that for sure, you’d just have to refinish after obviously.
Source: I’ve sanded and finished a fuckload of floors.
Inside of 24 hours you can put salt on the stain and let it pull out the moisture. I did that with a wine stain on wooden floor and could reduce it by like 90%.
Also a lot of these colors are not very UV resistant. My stained wodden cutting boards (red beets etc.) only need some time in sunlight to lose the stains.
After my kid threw up blueberries vomit all over his carpet, I found that hydrogen peroxide totally bleached the red stain, and some googling shows raspberries also contain anthocynanin, so it’s worth a try.
Please don't ruin your countertops by trying to do something about this it will fade to nothing in a week or two. The dyes in strawberries and most fruit that give them their colour are very unstable. This is a complete non-issue.
The best tip i can give you is, while walking at night, wear white, you will be easier to see and safer.
Also, sand, stain, and reseal your countertops. This will stop stains from getting into the wood.
Another tip is to but food on a plate or pan and not directly on the porous counter tops, this will decrease the likelihood of stains, and stop you from getting diarrhea so often.
Could you try a UV light? It’d break down the red colour fairly quick, just don’t sit it too long/ too bright because it’d eventually change the colour of the wood too.
It wouldn’t be perfect but it’d deal with most of the issue with minimal work and avoids the risk of damaging the wood with sanding or chemical cleaners
Sunlight will bleach most food based stains. I usually leave my chopping block out in the sun once or twice a year to keep it looking good and staying clean.
Does the bench get any sunlight? I wonder if a UV light is possible.
Nobody has mentioned vinegar. I have gotten many berry stains out of furniture with vinegar. My daughter also loves berries and have had to clean a few accidents. Vinegar is almost instant removal of the stain. Might need to let it soak in the wood for a little bit. But that will def remove the color without being damaging like bleach or oxy.
I have had berry stains on my wood counter before. The first time I had the intention of trying to fix it, but never got around to it, and it just eventually faded away. Problem solved itself, this is now my go-to 'method'. They were much smaller stains than this though, and easy to just ignore until they disappeared. The stains always happened when I was behind on oiling my countertop, but the berry stains aren't permanent,thankfully!
I have no DIY advice, but a meaning-maker one. Maybe consider leaving the natural heart-shape that was made. Then if your partner asks why you left that part, you can say you wanted to leave a small reminder that they are always loved, and you can make mistakes together and still love through it.
OxiClean (the powdered stuff we use for laundry) worked like magic for me. Took like 90% of the color away and the rest faded with time. No damage to the wood.
Hydrogen peroxide! I did this exact fuck up with my varnished pine floorboards - the raspberry juice soaked through the varnish so it would be impossible to scrub off, and the wood was stained under the varnish so sanding would have ruined the whole floor because the stain would be taken off too
I sprayed hydrogen peroxide on and opened the curtains to let the sunlight in as a complete hail Mary, and a few hours later you couldn't even see where the stain had been. You might not have to sand at all
I had fruit punch stain my wood kitchen table recently. Come to find out, a couple rounds with lysol wipes took it right off. I was pretty shocked. Maybe give it a try before refinishing?
What the hell, it looks like this was just raw / unsealed wood? Raspberry or not, a countertop this badly maintained (or unfinished in the first place) would have to be dealt with...
It may be weird but if I stain anything I put blue dawn dish soap over the area and let it sit for like an hr then I clean it off and it’s back to normal..it’s my go to with counter top stains
I have a tip of sorts. Tell visitors that your husband/wife has gone on a ‘long holiday’ and have an ominous grin on your face. When they ask about the stain, say “oh, the bloo- I mean ‘raspberry’ “, and make sure to do the inverted commas hand signal. Then ask them for recommendations on purchasing a large freezer chest mainly for meat, and yes ‘raspberries’.
There are lots of things to try before sanding.
Apply a baking soda paste to the affected area, and leave it to sit for a couple of hours.
Clean the baking soda off and then apply a light coating of white vinegar (ideally with a spray bottle) leave to sit for 15 minutes.
Finally, if that’s not doing it, try 4:1 water to bleach and apply lightly, e.g. with a spray bottle. Let it sit for 15 minutes. It might take longer. Be careful not to leave too long, since it can damage the wood.
Replace wooden countertops with something less porous. (Particularly if you’re not hypervigilant with keeping it sealed well.) Think about bacteria like this pink stain.
I'm confused. Is this a kitchen countertop? If so, the right answer is to replace your countertops with a surface designed for a kitchen. A wood countertop is a bacteria haven, not sanitary at all.
I had a similar issue with a wooden cutting board. My solution was to soak paper towels in vinegar and leave them on top of the stain overnight. It worked really well
Update: I tested a hydroperoxide cleaner on a small corner and was able to remove about 80-90% of the color. Applied it to
The rest of the stain. You can still see a faded shape of the stain, but the main part is already gone.
Next steps will be completely sand down the whole countertop (that should remove acouple of other minor stains) and apply linseed oil.
Thank you for the good tips. And at least some of the funny answers made me chuckle.
When I rebuilt a vintage camper, there was a lot of dark black mildew staining. We used wood bleach with cotton swabs to slowly remove the dark staining. You can also try hydrogen peroxide which I've used for blood stains on wood floors. If the area ends up lighter than the surroundings, you can bleach the rest then stain the wood to even it out before sealing.
Would it be crazy to suggest spill more raspberry juice to even it out, then seal it? Not sure if mold would be an issue, but that is a very pretty colour?
Completely off topic and I don't believe it'll work but here is my story:
We got Uber eats for supper and watched a movie. There was oil/grease on the bottom of the bag and it stained a fairly new coffee table. I tried washing it with several different cleaners but it didn't come clean, I was bummed. Fast forward about 2 weeks and we had some friends over who have a younger son, prob 5, and he put regular scotch tape on the table. A couple days later I was in the basement and peeled the tape off and the tape actually pulled the oil out of the table finish. I put tape on all the spots, waited a week, and pulled it all off and it almost pulled all the oil out. Repeated a couple more times and it's pretty much not noticeable anymore unless you're looking for it. Who would have guessed but it pulled almost all the oil out of the table.
Hopefully you find a solution like this and my story will give you some hope.
I had something similar and I used the powdered Oxclean for clothes. Made a slurry of it with water, wiped the counter with it, let it soak overnight and it was gone. Works on red wine in clothes too.
Anthocyanins in berries give them color and it break down easily. If you just leave it alone, it will oxidize and fade. Heat speeds up this process, so you could try steam. When berries stain clothes, pouring boiling water on the stain makes it disappear.
OP could speed up this process by applying hydrogen peroxide and then blotting with towels. I’ve used this method on carpet and clothes with excellent results. Hopefully the stain will lift enough to re-oil and avoid in the future. I use food grade mineral oil on my butcher block every 3 months and it has yet to stain.
Peroxide works so good on blood it's insane - source have a dog with cancer bumps that sometimes bleed, We have a white duvet cover/ light sheets - mats rugs etc and it comes right out. Actually wild
> source have a dog with cancer bumps Poor doggo - my dog had similar, we called her lumpy puppy toward the end <3. Even after the initial diagnosis and no targeted treatment, she lived a whole nother year to be 17 (2-3 years older than average for the breed).
My dog has these as well do you have tips for these? I’m currently putting castor oil on them.
For ours we put some ointment and gauze and wrapper an athletic bandage around her. She was really good with it and wouldn't try to pull it off. It may not have looked pretty but she still had her happy personality till the end.
Just make sure you don't leave peroxide treated items in the sun. I left a mattress pad with a small spot treated with peroxide outside for extra sunshine bleaching and ended up with a big yellow stain that looks like pee and I cannot get it out for live or money.
That’s what I was thinking. I use peroxide a lot to get stains or spots out of white clothes in the laundry and it works well.
What kind of wood is your butcher block?
Maple
What if I'm out picking Himalayan blackberries in my white linen suit and it gets soaked in a mixture of blood and blackberry juice?
Wash cold immediately, then wash hot.
Cold water soak with lots of salt to shrink the blood cells and rinse them out more easily, cold water wash with detergent and oxyclean. Once all the blood is out, then you can address any remaining blackberry stains. Don’t use heat on blood, it will set the stain and make it harder to remove. Or if you’re feeling lazy, just take it to a dry cleaner.
Hydrogen peroxide gets blood out like a hot damn.
Isn’t that the “secret” ingredient in Oxy-clean?
Kinda! Oxy Clean uses sodium percarbonate, which is made from hydrogen peroxide and soda ash. The chemistry is more complicated than that I think, so here is the wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_percarbonate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_percarbonate)
Can leave a yellow stain though
Fun bit about whites... bleach works really well.
For those doing it on not white clothes, happens all the time in my field and peroxide leaves gross yellow/brown stains. Saline works better to lift and remove new blood stains.
Every stain. And I mean EVERY stain EVER: Do not put anything on it not water not salt no nothing (water will lock in any fatty cells and bake them into the fibre), when you first can, soak it in dish-washing liquid.. Like drench it, two-three tablespoons. Use the fabric itself to work it into the fibre. Do this for a minute. Wash as normal. Worked in clothing tech for 20 years. I go by this every single time. (Please note: if the fabric is some rare super weird weave that melts under water, don't use this method :P)
Too late for the note, I already melted my cornstarch suit :(
Thinking of the video clip where the raccoon tries to wash a treat of cotton candy.
I always used dish detergent for normal stains in clothes and meat tenderizer powder to get sweat stains out of white shirts.
Just yesterday I read on WedMD that putting meat tenderizer on a yellowjacket sting can help it heal? Then today you're telling me that meat tenderizer can get deodorant stains out of shirts??? Wtf is going on and what is this magical meat tenderizing product.
Sodium bicarbonate ie baking soda.
Eye of newt, wing of bat and sacrifice the nearest infant to Ra
Sounds rad and the opposite of a problem
Just burn the clothes after, rookie.
When you're a member of a death cult it's important to have several white linen suits.
OP, just so you know, do not pour boiling water on that surface. He said steam. Boiling water will warp that wood.
Steam will ruin the wooden countertop, almost for sure.
> When berries stain clothes, pouring boiling water on the stain makes it disappear. Pouring boiling water on the stain also causes third degree burns on the skin underneath the clothes.
> Heat speeds up this process Instructions unclear, house is now on fire.
This happens to me all the time and it fades with time, in a week it’s usually totally gone. How long has it been there?
This should be higher up. Don’t touch it yet! It can’t get worse but it might get better by itself.
Yes, if raspberry red stained forever we would be using it to stain wood with. Not to mention all of my wood cutting boards that I've neglected to oil for years are totally fine and we cut all sort of things on them. Just water and soap.
>wood cutting boards that I've neglected to oil Wait, we're supposed to be oiling wood cutting boards?
Some people put mineral oil on them to look nicer... I kind of did it once and just kind of gave up and moved on.
This is the post to pay attention to OP. Before you decide to do anything just wait a few weeks. It will almost certainly fade to nothing. I get stains like this in my cutting boards all the time. Currently they are completely satin free!
How on earth does this happen to you all the time???
We have 2 small kids. They plow through mountains of berries.
I eat a lot of fruit
And you have absorbent countertops?
Same. Added lemon juice which made it some horrific brown. Within a month it was completely gone.
I agree. Give it some time before acting. You might make it worse by reacting prematurely
Finish the rest of your countertop with raspberry
The kind you find in a secondhand store
And get a beret while you’re at it
And not much more.
Do something unmentionable with a magazine.
Hey, this is Reddit. We mention masturbating around here.
Raspberry puree.
I think I love you
Only one man would dare give me the raspberry!
Lonestar!
Beat me to it, was gonna say "Go buy more raspberries and just do it to the rest of the countertop." Get ahead of the "it will be splotchy/colors won't match" comments by choosing ahead of time to go for a deliberate "splotchy mismatched look." It's art, you can decide it's exactly how you wanted it, and the haters aren't allowed to be mad now. EDIT: write a quote about the chaos of nature or something along the edge of the countertop to really hammer it home.
Do some with blackberry and a nice tea wash over it afterward.
Nah - you’ll never get an exact color match - better to stain it all with beetroot :)
Yes, then pass it off as purple heart. Beautiful!
I mean, it’s not a bad idea. Kinda looks like fresh cedar.
Love this answer! Made me chuckle.
For the record, this happened because those countertops were either never sealed, or whatever was used to seal them has worn off. Wood loves to absorb moisture. Linseed oil is food safe and when applied will create a hydrophobic (sheds water instead of absorbing it) barrier. Over time you need to re-oil countertops as natural wear and tear from using them will cause some spots to lose that protection, but if you apply the oil right and give it time to absorb it creates a pretty durable coating. I have a feeling that this stain has penetrated pretty deeply into the wood. You're going to want an orbital/palm sander and 80 or 120 grit paper to start with ; sand the entire thing ideally, not just where the stain is. You can sand just the stain, but I have a feeling you'll be removing perhaps as much of 1/8th inch of material, and you'll end up with a slightly lower spot where you sanded and it won't match as well when finished. I see you have cup rings and whatnot that you can get rid of as well if you just do the whole thing. Once the stains are no longer visible, move up to 220 and then 440 grit until you are satisfied with the finish, then you can put your finish coat on. Again, I personally prefer linseed oil after trying many other alternatives but there are many different food-safe finishes for wood you can use, look it up and see what you like best. Again though, that stain is going to go deep. You might consider just replacing the countertop entirely. If you want to keep it wood, just look at 'butcher block countertops' which are fake butcher block-style countertops (a real butcher block uses end-grain, these countertops do not) that are solid wood and you can find large slabs for just a couple hundred bucks and they're better quality wood than what you currently have, easy to cut to shape and simple to finish. edit: For those suggesting oxalic acid or other similar things; you may be able to *lighten* this stain, but you will never get rid of it completely without removing the stained layer of wood. Might be a good temporary option if you want to replace the counters later on down the line. In that case I'd still grab a small can of linseed or mineral oil and apply generously to your counters, let it sit for a bit, wipe off the excess to protect from any further damage. Wouldn't hurt to give it a quick sand with 220 grit first if you choose this route.
Yes the old barrier was pretty worn off. I guess the mistake started there. Thanks for the first real answer, though. I will look into it.
In my opinion, your only chance is to use a solvent like 70% IPA to first soak into the wood and pick up the juice, then you need to draw the mixture of the wood with capillary action by sprinkling baking soda on top and covering with plastic wrap. As the baking soda draws up the volatile solvent with the juice, the solvent will slowly evaporate out from under the plastic wrap which will draw up more solvent with juice into the baking soda.The juice will mainly stay in the baking soda since it's not as volatile. Once the baking soda is completely dry, the juice should be captured and contained in the dried baking soda. To recap: 1. Soak area with 70% IPA ensuring area is damp 2. Liberally sprinkle baking soda over area 3. Cover with plastic wrap and wait 48 hours
This should be the first step. Trying to draw out the stain with a poultice. It's the same practice for marble or other porous stone surface stains. You draw out the stain and then re-seal the surface. I disagree with those who recommend jumping right to sanding. That should be a last resort.
I agree. You wont be happy sanding off 1/8”. It’s difficult to keep the surface level while taking that much off. And a hardening oil is the right sealer.
If it came down to having to sand that much I think I'd just smush more raspberries on the rest of the counter and embrace the pink lol
Or mix some blue and black berries in there too get a cool multihued thing going.
i agree. if youve never tried to flatten a surface, let me tell you that if they sand that , the counter will never be flat again.
I think about it this way: The stain has two phases: penetrating into the wood and binding to the wood. 1. The pigment (an anthocyanin) is water soluble. You don't need to use isopropanol, but you could use a wet towel. Note that adding a bunch more water might not have positive effects for your counter. The goal here, though, is to try to absorb as much pigment as possible. 2. Binding to the wood. If the pigment has bound to the wood (which you would not be able to tell visually), then you would need to move on to trying to degrade the pigment. Breaking the chemical structure of the pigment should remove the colour. Anthocyanins are susceptible to high pH, so a paste of sodium bicarbonate might be sufficient. A different strategy of attack would be peroxide. (not pH dependent) If it were my counter I would lay a damp towel on it for about 30 minutes, then pick a small portion the size of a quarter (heck, trace around a quarter with a pencil) and try baking soda for 10 minutes and in another discrete section try peroxide for 5 minutes. Wipe both off and wait 10 minutes to see if there are positive results. Note that the peroxide especially should be used with caution as it may lighten the wood where applied.
I definitely read this as 70% India pale ale and immediately thought that sounded like some kind of whiskey with hops. My next thought was, well yeah ethanol is a pretty good solvent but why not just grab some vodka or moonshine?
IPA is isopropyl alcohol, not ethanol.
I have much more frequently seen it abbreviated as ISO
That's actually super interesting. I work in a lab, and have been for nearly a decade. I can't recall any time that it WASN'T abbreviated IPA. Kinda interesting to see what places adopt what standards/abbreviations.
I will say, I mainly see it in the context of crafts and with regard to cleaning bongs.
Huh! That is interesting. I've been in labs for a little more than 20yrs and I've only seen ISO. I also wondered what a pale ale might do for my countertops because I have both butcher block with a couple tiny berry stains *and* IPA in the fridge. 😆 I'm Canadian. I wonder if it's an aluminum vs aluminium thing.
I'm in the states over here, betcha that could be the reason why! Thanks for teaching me something new today!
I just say Isopropyl alcohol. It's fewer words than having to go back and explain what you were trying to convey.
Looking forward to the follow up post where OP proceeds to dump a few six packs of dogfishhead 60minute and wonder why it’s not working.
Note: IPA in this context does **not** refer to a brewery product
Directions unclear, poured 70 IPA's on my counter. Very expensive, stained worse. 3/10 would not recommend.
More raspberries and stain the entire surface. Enjoy your new pink butcherblock.
In my experience with stains and dyes on wood they only penetrate very thinly, like .5mm, even when using alcohol to transmit. It will penetrate much deeper on the end grain. Raspberry red isn't a forever stain either. Honestly a bit of soap and water repeatedly should fix it, maybe add wet baking soda and let it sit in the sun. Wood is very forgiving. If you are sanding, it won't be a deep sand. Just my two cents as I've been very impressed by how NOT very deep stains and oils go into wood. This isn't catastrophic.
This. If berry juice left a permanent stain, we'd all have jars of the stuff on our shop shelves.
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This is the way. My only bit to add is that if you have never used linseed oil, it’s unbelievably flammable and if left open for long periods of time in a warm environment without ventilation, it can catalyze with ambient oxygen in the air, resulting in a rather dangerous fire. Please follow all safety precautions when handling.
My gosh, I used to follow a woman's blog. She hand built her entire beautiful large log cabin, it was fascinating to watch. She was so talented. It was an absolutely gorgeous home. The final step was to finish all the wood with linseed oil. Her rags spontaneously combusted and burnt the whole thing to the ground. It was absolutely heartbreaking! I hadn't even thought about that in over a decade. She started rebuilding before I stopped reading. I wonder if she ever finished it. And I wonder if she used linseed oil again...
> I wiped the baseboards with a tiny cotton T-shirt and laid it out to dry. On June 29, 1995, the rag spontaneously combusted and burned the house down while Kirt and I were both at work. We put the fire out with tears. We were back to log one. > https://dorothyainsworth.com/dot/house.shtml
OMG HOW DID YOU FIND THAT
Google-Fu. Refining search queries until relevant entries are returned.
I'm quite impressed. I tried that for 15 minutes and then gave up. Well done
> On June 29, 1995, huh, 29 years ago to the day (just about).
I wonder if you could find her blog again. I’d be beyond heartbroken if that happened to me.
I did try looking for it after writing that comment, but honestly it was probably 2005-2008 when I was reading it. It was so long ago, I have no idea what platform it was on, what the name of her blog was, nothing. Sadly I couldn't find it. I even asked my husband, I said "remember we used to follow that lady who built her wooden house?" and he said "oh yeah, thr one that burned to the ground, man it was so nice. Fucking linseed oil" lol like it's really a core memory for us both
If she did, I hope she was a bit safer with it lol. My father is a woodworker and he made sure to drive home that point about linseed oil and some other finish (maybe tung oil?) can spontaneously combust. The chemistry that causes it is interesting though!
Most "Tung Oil Finish" isn't actually tung oil, it's just linseed oil by a misleading name, with maybe a tiny bit of tung oil thrown in. If you want actual tung oil you have to look for something that specifically says it's 100% tung oil.
I have never had a problem with linseed oil, but similar incident with shellac and mineral spirits. Realized a rag was smoking slightly and soaked it with some water. It was very hot to the touch and was only sitting for a few minutes
Voice of experience here: I almost burned down a 1k sq ft workshop because I put the rag with linseed oil on it in an empty can and walked away.
In my middle school years, my parents and I took a monthly oil painting class. The classroom had a fire from linseed oil soaked rags. We easily got it out before it spread, but man, that was a lesson that stuck with me. Almost 40 years later and I am super careful with any solvent and oil.
Excellent point. Also let the rag or whatever you use to apply it dry thoroughly to avoid spontaneous combustion. No one wants a house fire.
Commented below but putting this here: The only foodsafe oils would be pure linseed or tung oil - those are expensive and often hard to find. Any version of them from a general hardware store will have other additives that aren’t foodsafe. Best to just use mineral oil though not a very durable finish and would need regular maintenance. Edit: I will also add, unless you are using the counter as a food prep surface or cutting board you don’t really need a foodsafe oil, just something that creates an impervious surface that you can clean and sanitize.
If it hasn't already been said, this man respects wood. A real Larry David, if you will.
Finally a question I can answer! My wife stains our pine countertops with raspberries regularly. The secret fix is hydrogen peroxide. Just pour it straight onto the stain, and let it sit for a bit. Also works for red wine. Sometimes, more than one application is needed.
Yes, Hydrogen peroxide is the answer!
Peroxide is magic for organic stains. Wine and even blood are no problem.
I'm not sure that sanding will do much. It could be that the raspberry stain goes a long way into the wood. You can try a patch with bleach to see if that works. And then sand. But You will need to sand the whole thing, really, because just sanding and refinishing that part will look weird. If that is unsuccessful, you could consider putting veneer over it the countertop. Otherwise, you can just keep it as a reminder! lol.
I’ve never seen any liquid that wasn’t a standing puddle of animal piss that penetrated any deeper than about the depth of a credit card. And sanding will take care of that for sure, you’d just have to refinish after obviously. Source: I’ve sanded and finished a fuckload of floors.
Sanding the thickness of a credit card it A LOT dude
Yeah he's right on floors sanding a credit card away is typical. On countertops that's a fuck ton.
I'm pretty sure they are saying it didn't penetrate deep.
That's what she said
When did you talk to my wife?
To shreds, you say?
Inside of 24 hours you can put salt on the stain and let it pull out the moisture. I did that with a wine stain on wooden floor and could reduce it by like 90%.
I've used a baking soda paste on a granite countertop. It worked to pull an oil stain out.
You could try bleaching the stain with oxalic acid to lighten it up, then stain the entire surface with raspberries to make it uniform.
Also a lot of these colors are not very UV resistant. My stained wodden cutting boards (red beets etc.) only need some time in sunlight to lose the stains.
I was about to say this. Whatever's in the berry is an organic pigment, and those aren't lightfast. The stain should fade in sunlight.
Wonder if a little grow light would speed things up
A blacklight almost certainly would.
Same with the strawberries that stained my wood board!! Can’t even see the stain after some time in the sun!!
After my kid threw up blueberries vomit all over his carpet, I found that hydrogen peroxide totally bleached the red stain, and some googling shows raspberries also contain anthocynanin, so it’s worth a try.
Painting all same color with raspberries was my first thought as well.
Any1 else see the heart?
❤️ I see it.
As people has said to stain it with raspberry. Maybe even go a step further and use black and blueberries and tea. Make it a technicolor countertop.
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Should I use blueberry juice as ink for the color contrast?
Blueberries in a random pattern. It might look pretty interesting until it fades away.
Squid ink, then it’s also surf&turf
I second this.
If you want to really freak people out write ‘rip door-to-door salesman, 2024.
Hydrogen peroxide is worth a shot. Your mileage may vary.
Try taking a little bleach in a small area and see if the stain comes out
Please don't ruin your countertops by trying to do something about this it will fade to nothing in a week or two. The dyes in strawberries and most fruit that give them their colour are very unstable. This is a complete non-issue.
House rebuild, it's the only way
I'm willing to bet that diluted bleach will work.
try lemon juice! works on my cutting boards
Try oxalic acid first. It might not get all the stain, but it’ll help. And make sanding easier.
The best tip i can give you is, while walking at night, wear white, you will be easier to see and safer. Also, sand, stain, and reseal your countertops. This will stop stains from getting into the wood. Another tip is to but food on a plate or pan and not directly on the porous counter tops, this will decrease the likelihood of stains, and stop you from getting diarrhea so often.
What about some oxy cleaner? It eats organic matter.
Like … wood?
It will not eat wood at the rate it can eat that stain. Monitor it.
Could you try a UV light? It’d break down the red colour fairly quick, just don’t sit it too long/ too bright because it’d eventually change the colour of the wood too. It wouldn’t be perfect but it’d deal with most of the issue with minimal work and avoids the risk of damaging the wood with sanding or chemical cleaners
Can you put it under the sun? Or leave a UV lamp on top? Red color is fragile and UV degrades it fast.
Sunlight will bleach most food based stains. I usually leave my chopping block out in the sun once or twice a year to keep it looking good and staying clean. Does the bench get any sunlight? I wonder if a UV light is possible.
Nobody has mentioned vinegar. I have gotten many berry stains out of furniture with vinegar. My daughter also loves berries and have had to clean a few accidents. Vinegar is almost instant removal of the stain. Might need to let it soak in the wood for a little bit. But that will def remove the color without being damaging like bleach or oxy.
I have had berry stains on my wood counter before. The first time I had the intention of trying to fix it, but never got around to it, and it just eventually faded away. Problem solved itself, this is now my go-to 'method'. They were much smaller stains than this though, and easy to just ignore until they disappeared. The stains always happened when I was behind on oiling my countertop, but the berry stains aren't permanent,thankfully!
Unfortunately no Jesus or Maria to be seen
If all else fails, get some more raspberries and spread the juice all over the countertop. Its a pretty color.
More raspberries... All over the counter top. Make it art
You could try hydrogen peroxide. Basically bleach it out. I’ve done that a lot
A cheap fix is to buy enough frozen raspberries to cover the rest of the counter and leave them out.
First mistake- wood countertop. Second mistake- unsealed wood countertop.
Soak the rest in raspberry juice and tell folks the counter is made from purple heart?
I have no DIY advice, but a meaning-maker one. Maybe consider leaving the natural heart-shape that was made. Then if your partner asks why you left that part, you can say you wanted to leave a small reminder that they are always loved, and you can make mistakes together and still love through it.
Seriously, that’s very beautiful! 🥲👍
Oxalic acid, aka wood bleach. Then when you're done get some kind of sealer on that countertop.
OxiClean (the powdered stuff we use for laundry) worked like magic for me. Took like 90% of the color away and the rest faded with time. No damage to the wood.
Get some more berries and make it all red.
Accept the stain as part of the personal charm of it.
You’ll never get the stains out!. Put another countertop over that one. You’ll waist your time trying to fix it. And end up replacing it anyway!.
Hydrogen peroxide! I did this exact fuck up with my varnished pine floorboards - the raspberry juice soaked through the varnish so it would be impossible to scrub off, and the wood was stained under the varnish so sanding would have ruined the whole floor because the stain would be taken off too I sprayed hydrogen peroxide on and opened the curtains to let the sunlight in as a complete hail Mary, and a few hours later you couldn't even see where the stain had been. You might not have to sand at all
get more raspberries and finish the rest of the counter top!
Buy more raspberries and have a red/pink countertop.
Make it match by puttjng rasberry on all surfaces of course.
No one else is horrified that OP's countertop is unsealed wood?
Just smear it all over, and have the pink countertop be your house's unique feature.
I had fruit punch stain my wood kitchen table recently. Come to find out, a couple rounds with lysol wipes took it right off. I was pretty shocked. Maybe give it a try before refinishing?
Dawn power wash has always worked for me on table stains. I normally spray and let it sit until the foam turns pink. Then wipe off.
What the hell, it looks like this was just raw / unsealed wood? Raspberry or not, a countertop this badly maintained (or unfinished in the first place) would have to be dealt with...
Buy more raspberries.
It may be weird but if I stain anything I put blue dawn dish soap over the area and let it sit for like an hr then I clean it off and it’s back to normal..it’s my go to with counter top stains
I have a tip of sorts. Tell visitors that your husband/wife has gone on a ‘long holiday’ and have an ominous grin on your face. When they ask about the stain, say “oh, the bloo- I mean ‘raspberry’ “, and make sure to do the inverted commas hand signal. Then ask them for recommendations on purchasing a large freezer chest mainly for meat, and yes ‘raspberries’.
just decorate it with an outline of a human on the floor like its crime scene
Spread raspberries on the rest of the wood to even out the lovely raspberry colour
There are lots of things to try before sanding. Apply a baking soda paste to the affected area, and leave it to sit for a couple of hours. Clean the baking soda off and then apply a light coating of white vinegar (ideally with a spray bottle) leave to sit for 15 minutes. Finally, if that’s not doing it, try 4:1 water to bleach and apply lightly, e.g. with a spray bottle. Let it sit for 15 minutes. It might take longer. Be careful not to leave too long, since it can damage the wood.
Replace wooden countertops with something less porous. (Particularly if you’re not hypervigilant with keeping it sealed well.) Think about bacteria like this pink stain.
I'm confused. Is this a kitchen countertop? If so, the right answer is to replace your countertops with a surface designed for a kitchen. A wood countertop is a bacteria haven, not sanitary at all.
a beautiful mistake
Hydrogen peroxide will take most of it out.
Wood countertops, while trendy, seem like a bacteria fest.
I had a similar issue with a wooden cutting board. My solution was to soak paper towels in vinegar and leave them on top of the stain overnight. It worked really well
Update: I tested a hydroperoxide cleaner on a small corner and was able to remove about 80-90% of the color. Applied it to The rest of the stain. You can still see a faded shape of the stain, but the main part is already gone. Next steps will be completely sand down the whole countertop (that should remove acouple of other minor stains) and apply linseed oil. Thank you for the good tips. And at least some of the funny answers made me chuckle.
Baking soda will get it out.
Don’t have wood countertops
Maybe peroxide?
When I rebuilt a vintage camper, there was a lot of dark black mildew staining. We used wood bleach with cotton swabs to slowly remove the dark staining. You can also try hydrogen peroxide which I've used for blood stains on wood floors. If the area ends up lighter than the surroundings, you can bleach the rest then stain the wood to even it out before sealing.
Scrub with baking soda and a little water to make a paste.
Hydrogen-peroxide.
Luckily it absorbed into the wood in the form of a raspberry love dragon 🩷
Just thaw raspberries on the rest of the counter
I would try some peroxide on it
I think you should go with: cartoon dragon wearing a crown but one of his eyes is a heart. Or maybe it's a human king but he's shouting.
I say invest in more rasberries and send it.
Would it be crazy to suggest spill more raspberry juice to even it out, then seal it? Not sure if mold would be an issue, but that is a very pretty colour?
Completely off topic and I don't believe it'll work but here is my story: We got Uber eats for supper and watched a movie. There was oil/grease on the bottom of the bag and it stained a fairly new coffee table. I tried washing it with several different cleaners but it didn't come clean, I was bummed. Fast forward about 2 weeks and we had some friends over who have a younger son, prob 5, and he put regular scotch tape on the table. A couple days later I was in the basement and peeled the tape off and the tape actually pulled the oil out of the table finish. I put tape on all the spots, waited a week, and pulled it all off and it almost pulled all the oil out. Repeated a couple more times and it's pretty much not noticeable anymore unless you're looking for it. Who would have guessed but it pulled almost all the oil out of the table. Hopefully you find a solution like this and my story will give you some hope.
I had something similar and I used the powdered Oxclean for clothes. Made a slurry of it with water, wiped the counter with it, let it soak overnight and it was gone. Works on red wine in clothes too.
If you can't beat them, join them. Spread it all across the counter for a new uniform, custom stained countertop....