Many people prefer to use wood furniture. This is based on the fact that wooden furniture has many advantages, from its classic impression to its stronger and more durable qualities. However, wooden furniture is usually covered with varnish or polish to make it look nicer and shiny. This makes your home furniture seem luxurious.

However, it turns out that wood varnish and polish are two different things. Even though it is similar, wood varnish or lacquer polish have fundamental differences and become their respective characteristics.

Here are some differences between wood varnish and polish:

Raw Material
Wood varnish use resin, drying oil and solvents for the raw materials. The solvents are usually solvent-based and water-based types. Solvent based is combination of thinner as a solvent, while water based uses water as the solvent.

Meanwhile, polish is a transparent paint made from ocher. Ocher is a soft domain through oxidize process. This process causes ocher to have many color variations, including light yellow, golden yellow, to brown. Unlike wood varnish, polish does not use solvents.

How to use
The wood varnish can be used without doing any mixture. You only need to apply wood varnish on the surface you want to coat, using a brush and later the surface will look shiny by itself.
While in polish, you have to mix it with the solvent. In the past, the solvent used was a kind of rubbing alcohol, but now you can use thinner as the solvent.

Results
Wood varnish will only make the surface more shiny without giving color. This will make the color of the wood and grain visible, looks more natural.
While polish will give some color to the surface. This is due to the ocher substance in the polish which causes the color on the varnish. Even it seems unnatural, varnish is a solution for wood materials that have uneven color.

Benefit
Wood varnish has another function, maintain the durability of the wood it is coated with. This makes furniture coated with wood varnish more durable because it makes the wood fibers stronger.
While the lacquer does not have the function of strengthening the wood it is coated with. Polish is only useful for polishing and coloring wood surfaces.

Those are some of the differences between wood varnish and polish that you should know so you don’t get confused about which to choose. Use it, according to your needs.

–sh