Customer Reviews for Varathane 1 Quart Wood Conditioner (2-Pack)

I am so disappointed. I have used mini wax wood conditioner in the past and there were no fumes. Now Home Depot doesn’t carry mini wax. I regret using this condition. It also darkened my wood and I have to start all over. Very upset!

Easy to apply. Could only find the small sized cans so I had to buy three. Good product.

This is a must have for staining soft woods like pine. It really helps to keep the stain from blotching.

I conditioned, stained and varathaned my custom workbench. Had several tell me it was more of a household piece that a garage piece! Ha *came out good.

Only giving 4 stars due to lack of information available from Rustoleum on this product. However, we achieved the look we were going after. We decided to buy unfinished cabinets for the kitchen. If our stain doesn't work out, we'll still paint with oil based paints. But, we wanted to try to create a natural look using the money we spent. We definitely followed the directions. Against the grain. It was nice to see the difference of the conditioner before our eyes.

Seems like an alright product? I had never used before. I wanted to stain birch to look like walnut. I was told at my local HD store that this wood conditioner opens the pores of the wood to absorb the stain, (or create an even absorption). Was told the pictures of my project, (after this conditioner and four coats of stain), look good but I'm not happy with it. I did sand prior, but think I left this on too long? I also think I should have gone with a gel wood stain. Hopefully the Varathane stain poly will make it look better to me.

I used this as directed and the aged walnut stain for my butcher block for a desk and it turned out blotchy. So disappointing

I have used pre conditioner before with another brand and was very disappointed in this product. The fumes were awful and it took hours to dry! I had one area where there was no pre conditioner and when I stained it and another area that had pre conditioner, the pre conditioner was blotchy-it had the opposite effect (image shows the left side where the pre-conditioner was used). Now I have to re-sand the floors again and start again-so frustrating!

I stripped and sanded an antique oak cabinet. I was under the impression that I needed to add conditioner to the piece. The conditioner has darkened the oak and I planned to add a white oak stain to the wood. Now the doors are darker than the cabinet that was just sanded. I would not recommend applying this conditioner to oak wood.

This product does not work. I ran out of MinWax pre-stain conditioner and swapped some of this in. Came out just how I suspected. Luckily this is the inside of the door that no one will see. I urge anyone to avoid this product as it will cause blotching. See photos for comparison between MinWax and Varathane.

after issues with three different projects now all of them preconditioned there seems to be a common theme. The wood conditioner saturates the wood to a level that it doesn't absorb as much stain as it should and resulting in a tacky residue left over when the stain dries. to test the theory I stained a fourth project without putting any conditioner on it and had no issues at all. conditioner leaves the wood exactly the way it says it's not supposed to, incredibly blotchy.

It helped even out the stain that I used afterwards

Used it on birch applied 2 coats with a brush. This was the only option at Home Depot, It’s totally worth it. You can see in the photos that it is still a little blotchy but much better than the sample piece I tried to stain without the wood conditioner.

I used this prior to staining with Varathane Premium Fast Dry stain. The directions on the stain stated that use of a conditioner was unecessary with this product, but I didn't want to take a chance after many hours of sanding stair treads. The conditioner was easy to apply, and was rapidly and evenly absorbed. It was easy to clean up drips or overapplicaton. It does put out some fumes, so be ready with a fan or other air circulation if using indoors.

Used it before staining my coffee table

One coat of this very thick product is enough, while other brands require multiple. Brings out the wood beauty in my projects.

I am using it for an art project Acrylic pouring

Excellent for evening out stain application on pine, this was suggested to apply before staining bare wood and it worked beautifully.

Worked like it should.

I have stain so much with out using a conditioner. and i never had any problems. but this time i wanted to give this stuff a try. and i was very impressed. it was very easy to apply and it made my stain application a little easier and come out better.

Made pine look like red mahogany great coverage

After spending two days stripping and sanding my front door to a bare almost blond wood, I applied this product and it made all the wood various shades of dark so no longer could I have a light door. Stained it darker to cover up the mess and had the same type problem. Applied top coat and made it worse, Finally ended up having to paint it, Not happy at all

This product used exactly as directed ruined $500 worth of cherry. It turned the wood a yellow color and when stained later with a "compatible" stain (oil based), the wood became so blotchy with black dots and lines it was obvious that the product did not do as stated. I would have been better off just to stain first without the pre-stain. I started a complaint with Rust-Oleum and sent pictures but have been ignored so far. Next is small claims court as I lost a client and job over this. Back to using another companies product.

I didn't know I needed this before I used the stain it worked fantastic

The instructions were easy to follow. I used it to seal a piece of pine before I applied stain. The conditioner helped create a blotch-free, evenly tinted finished product.

This stuff works great. I was staining some ash and the finish was coming up terribly dark and blotchy all over. I ended up having to sand off all the stain and use this conditioner. I prepped the wood just like I would if I were staining it and made sure the surface was completely dust free with a tack cloth. I then added a liberal amount of the conditioner to the wood with a foam brush and let it soak in for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes I wiped up the excess conditioner and allowed the conditioner to dry for 2 hours. The directions state 30 minutes before staining but I felt that was too quick so I went with 2 hours with incredible results.

This is a great product that I've been using for years and have treated (with a bigger can) a table top, large bookshelf roller shelf, etc. It gives a nice, uniform stain as if you had sprayed it, with no light or dark spots. I did not sand the wood as recommended, but in many cases you can't since you need a smooth finish. I have down below an example of a quality plum stain on a regular piece of pine; left untreated, right treated. Depending on your wood, stain, and method of application, you might choose to not use this conditioner as it may lighten your desired too much; up to you. This liquid spreads really easy, so you don't need any special applicators; a paper towel will do wonders. It does dry fairly quick, even in colder climates. In the few minutes it takes to apply/dry and the few dollars, it's really a no-brainer if it works for your application.

Worked great- allowed stain to be absorbed evenly- no blotches! Will definitely use again.

Never really used wood conditioner before staining things. I figured I would give it a try. It seems to work really well. I used it on some closet doors. After sanding a cleaning off, I put a coat of this on, sanded it down again, then stained it. It seemed to to make the stain appear much more uniform and consistent. While adding an additional step and more time might be the only con, it is worth it after seeing the final product.

I'm using this conditioner on a project Rocking Chair. The chair was made from Arkansas pine and was built back in the mid fifties. It has traversed these past 62+ years from the humidity of Oklahoma and Arkansas to the dry air of high altitude Colorado and now it resides in extremely dry conditions in the desert of Arizona. Now the chair spends most of its time outside on a covered porch. We hand sanded the pine, did some minor re-gluing but didn't want to remove the character of the hand-made rocker by making it perfect. Following the sanding we applied the wood conditioner. We're pleased with the results and plan to use a light stain next. Photos attached.