This is a finish for wooden floors and furniture that uses no harsh chemicals.

Many of the products in our homes are manufactured with high levels of VOC that can slowly leach in to our indoor environment and cause us issues that we aren’t necessarily aware are linked. In this short video I wanted to bring you a recipe I use for a surface coating that is incredibly easy to make and apply.
If you apply it to furniture or a wooden floor then it allows the wood to breathe too which can help prolong its life. It isn’t as durable or hard wearing as many modern finishes, but unlike the hard and non-breathable coatings this won’t crack, and is so it’s very easy to reapply. The idea is it gives a soft and washable surface that you keep maintained with a frequent re-application of the soap.

https://vimeo.com/552876663

Note: Soap only works as a finish if you start with the right sort.

It has to be old fashioned soap made out of oils or fat.
This is often sold for washing clothes with (as an eco friendly option), so looking out for ‘soap flakes for laundry’ is a good way of tracking it down.

Another option is to look out for a solid ‘castile’ soap bar and then grate it in to flakes yourself.

Each soap will have a different combination of oils in and so the colour will vary but this shouldn’t affect the finish.

All that’s required is to dissolve the soap in hot water, and you can be fairly loose with the ratio. The mix used in the video above had roughly the same volume of water to soap flakes, which once mixed will firm up to a slightly gelatinous substance over a couple of days.

It’s a very easy finish to apply and incredibly unusual in the lovely soft surface that it leaves.
It froths a little when rubbed on, but leaves pale woods with barely any colour change once it’s dried. Any excess should be rubbed off after about twenty minutes and further coats applied once it’s dry.

The application shown in the video was on a Trestle Table built by Richard for ‘The English Woodworker’.
This is my other business, and we produce video education for teaching traditional hand tool woodworking skills. There’s load of free info over on our blog so if that’s of any interest to you you can learn more at the website: The English Woodworker