Ratings & Reviews for Minwax PolyShades Oil-based Olde Maple Semi-transparent Satin Interior Stain ( 1-quart )

Terrible, Stay away

Difficult to work with. It’s impossible to get a nice uniform finish.. Dries too fast if you try put on thin coats

Not a good choice for me

Review Polyshade After using PolyShades all in one my choice is to strip the oak table and chairs again or trash them PolyShades was blotchy and uneven. Unfortunately, this all-in-one polyurethane stain cannot be adjusted the way regular stain can be. This stuff is impossible to apply without the finish looking as though a 5-year-old did it. It’s globby, uneven and just plain awful to use. It’s almost as though it clots. I’ve refinished many pieces over the years but nothing has failed lik...

Beautiful jobs completed

I can’t tell  you when I bought my Minwax Polyshade, there’s always some left in the can from a previous use, it’s the only product I use!  It always goes on smooth and cleans up nicely and the furniture looks beautiful!

Great Look

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Worked well. Looks great. Made cabinet look brand new.

Enjoy using

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I use this often for my projects. It creates a nice finish.

Refinisher beware

I found this produce very hard to work with, perhaps because of the combination of stain and poly -- streaky colors and gummy application. Using steel wool between coats, (as directed) is a mistake, even after 7 hours of drying time as it sticks to some parts of the finish that were apparently not fully cured. I wish I'd stayed with the traditional two step strain and finish process.

Nightmare to use

You have no control over the color, especially with wood that absorbs color unevenly. Plus the instructions on the can say to use either a foam or natural bristle brush. You have very little control over how much product gets applied with a foam brush and it kept dripping on the window frame.

Life and room changing!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I have used Minwax Polyshades after many months of research to redo the wood on my stairwell in my 1906 home. At one point, there were renters who were a little too fond of white paint and I had to remove the color of the front of each step, as well as the banister. I used Mission Oak and the results are fantastic! Better than I could of hoped for! Thank you MinWax

Never again

Never again! The application requires way too much sanding. Not worth it. It is impossible to apply without bubbles. Streaks, etc. You will spend 10x more timing fine sanding. I had to strip the entire piece. Went back to stain and wipeon poly.

Beautiful color!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I used this to stain and poly the pine tongue and groove ceiling boards for a camper van I am building out. I used two coats of the pecan gloss and it turned out great!

works great!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I use this product on all of my wood projects and it aways comes out just how I want it. 10/10 recommend

Use the Recommended Brush Natural Bristle

I bought Mission Oak for my Bathroom Vanity top made out of plywood. I started out with a nylon brush and it was horrible. I reread the instruction to use a natural bristle brush!! So I started over, and I'm on the 2nd coat, and it looks so beautiful! The Natural Bristle brush is Key to using Polyshades.

Uneven color and sticky

Refinished a desktop with this after stripping down to bare wood. Left an absolutely miserable finish. It is so tacky and sticky that it shows every brush mark. Every brush mark start is shown as a color change that doesn’t even out. Quite frankly, this is a miserable product.

Stunning results, perfect finish

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I exclusively use Minwax stains and spar on all of my wooden decor and home projects. Aside from having beautiful variety of choices, the quality is superior and Last such a long time. They are versatile to play with and create your own color combinations, And flexible enough For a variety of finishes. I absolutely love Minwax products!

Never Again

I read up on this product, and I used it EXACTLY as recommended; now, I guess I get to sand it and hopefully cover it up with gel stain and clear varnish. The coverage is spotty, some areas darker than others, and it's very gummy going on. You can't go over it a second time, or it smears up. I bought it to use on vertical surfaces, big mistake. If you're covering a large area, you'll get a sticky mess anywhere you overlap. I've been using Minwax for many years, this product is not the quali...

Made refinishing easy!

My kid had beat up his real wood bedroom set pretty badly. I sanded it down, and used Polyshades to save time. I loved it! You do have to be really mindful of drips, checking for them very often. The finished product was beautiful. We left the furniture in the garage for about 3 weeks to allow a full cure. So far it has been incredibly durable.

application proved extremely difficult and inconve

This varnish is a complete disappointment. I bought it hoping to save time and effort when painting my furniture, but the result turned out to be catastrophic. Firstly, the advertised "all-in-one" turned out to be nothing but an attractive slogan, as the varnish with toning additives left much to be desired. Firstly, application proved extremely difficult and inconvenient due to its fast drying, resulting in uneven, patchy coverage with brush marks, no matter how hard you tried, far from what wa...

Great one step tinted varnish

Awesome product. I used this to darken a pre-existing wood staircase. The nice thing about this is that you do not need to get to bare wood. You apply it over lightly sanded prior varnish. For us, it worked like magic, after 2 coats, we got a beautiful darkening of the oak. Highly recommended.

Antique Walnut on Black Walnut disaster

I am trying to put a darker look to this piece of Black Walnut, it looked good going on but dried with white spots. The wood was freshly sanded and cleaned of any sawdust. What happened?

Save your money.

Absolutely an Awful product.  Have not experienced a more difficult wood working product ever in my 50 year of woodworking.  Very difficult to work with, zero forgiveness.  Very difficult to apply evenly.  Short pot time.  Have tried every trick in the book, terrible results.   Will go back to stain and lacquer process.