Help! Anyone know how to get a giant streak of white out of antique furniture caused by hand sanitizer?

I used to help my mom get rid of water marks on our coffee table by taking a tooth brush and toothpaste and rubbing that into them. I don’t know if that will work for the alcohol damage on your sideboard, though. Awww… sorry. grrrr. Bad sister. No pudding.

I should say too that I don’t know if its shellac or some form of varnish.

I’m a little leery to try things as this piece of furniture is the first thing you see when you come into my house.

The batty thing is that she’ll deny doing this in about 30 minutes due to her head injury.

I haven’t a clue on what could be used to get this stain out, I would only advice you that whatever you are going to use for it, try it out first on a piece of wood that is not in plain sight.

I’ll second @cazzie‘s comment about trying toothpaste (not gel). I once left a water ring on an antique nightstand, and dabbing toothpaste on it removed it. No brush was used though, and the table wasn’t shellacked. Why not give it a small dab and see what happens? If toothpaste doesn’t harm non-shellacked furniture, I doubt that it would (no pun intended) damage shellacked wood.

I’m afraid I don’t know how to help, but if you are keeping the hand sanitizer on the sideboard, I think you’ll want to find another place.

Is there any of the same finish on the backside or inside edge of a drawer or door to the piece? If so and you feel confident then take some furniture varnish remover and wipe a cotton swab of hand sanitizer across a small patch to get the same effect as the big streak. After it’s dry then try rubbing a little varnish remover to see if it will blend the bleached spot into the surrounding. If that doesn’t work then try going over the sample bleached area with varnish and see if it darkens the area enough to blend with the original. Good luck. I’ve had lots of beautiful pieces get little oopses on them and it’s always frustrating.

I would try the toothpaste trick as well. Whether it works or not, at least you know it’s just the shellac/varnish/whatever that’s damaged – if worse comes to worst, you could take it somewhere to be refinished.

If none of the jelly tricks work, call someone who fixes furniture. I have had finishes damaged a couple times during moves and the moving company sent over furniture fix it specialist, whatever you call them, and they work magic.

I wasn’t the one who put the hand sanitizer on the sideboard. She bought it and put it there while we were out.

I’ll try the toothpaste. It seriously can’t look any worse than it already does.

Thanks for the tips everyone :-)