I have old wood floors. I recently came upon a plastic bag full of bottles of lotion and shampoo which hAd leaked and left a hidden mess on the floor. Along with that came some darkening of the wood.
I cleaned off the wood with a paper towel and then put some hydrogen peroxide on a paper towel and dabbed. It over the stain. I then covered it with baking powder. This is a trick that helped me repair our floors when our cats urinated and pooped on the floor.
I vacuumed up the powder after about 10 minutes. I usually wait longer sometimes overnight but I was impatient. The floor had improved except some of it was too light.
Having read other articles about roving white stains on the floor, I put some olive oil on a paper towel and buffed it in. My floors turned out pretty well.
Here is a before the olive oil picture
Here are a couple photos after a quick treatment with olive oil
It is not perfect but I am amazed. I also used baking powder to remove water stains which had whitened the floor. It worked as well.
I then went to another area which was damaged by a bag of onions that I had bought at a fundraiser and left on the floor. It had whitened the floor about 8 years ago. I took some olive oil and wiped it on. Much improved for sure.
I have not perfected my technique, but my toolkit now includes vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, paper towels, vacuum, and olive oil. Searched the web and find out what may work for you. Use caution as even though these are household products they still can impact the surfaces they contact.
Here is the cat stain I was able to fix over a few days. This is a story for another day. Leave a comment if you want to see the after pictures. If no one is interested, I will leave this article as is. All I will say is I am absolutely amazed I removed the stain with dish soap, vinegar, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. I think I will touch it up with some olive oil one of these days and some of the floor was left lighter as they were more heavily impacted by the cats urine and poop.
