Review on Bona Pro Series Hardwood Floor Refresher - 32oz by Rick Vidaurri

Let's get straight to the point: This product is a permanent urethane topcoat, not a traditional floor wax remover. I feel like Bona's "Floor Refresher" (this product) and "Floor Polish" have opposite names. This stuff is permanent and the floor needs to be really clean. In any case, I used it on a new 3/8 inch pre-finished solid bamboo floor, which isn't exactly Bona's recommended application. However, this product has been specifically listed as the only permanent top coat approved by the flooring manufacturer (EcoTimber) to seal the joints between planks against splashes and pet accidents that can really ruin a bamboo floor if liquid gets under the planks. Pull boards from leftovers and applique worked well with three coats. Then due to the room layout I applied three coats to one half of the room. The first two coats. I felt these coats got very thin and the smaller the air bubbles (like foam ) created by this applicator worried me, but they went away before the finish started to dry. For the third coat, as recommended on the bottle, I used a brand new Bona Blue microfiber mop. Bona warns that too thin a layer leaves streaks so I thought I'd applied it thicker but I still got very light streaks. When I started the second half of the room a few days later, I settled on a blue Bona microfiber mop with a new mop head. I applied the first coat as firmly as possible to avoid streaks and hoping the liquid would spread evenly. COMPLETE ERROR. Instead, the heavily applied film tended to blister and dried very, very blotchy. I applied the second coat quite heavily, hoping to hide the first coat, but that didn't help much. On the third coat I switched back to the hardware store applicator and got slightly better results. In short, I totally disagree with Bona on the use of their blue microfiber mop and the thickness of at least the first coat. Of course I applied it to a brand new floor and the cleanliness of the new precast planks may have helped some surface tension cause the film to come together the way it did. I'm not authorized to make any recommendations, but I can say that the first half of my floor that has had a very thin 'primer' of this product applied to it with a non-Bona applicator looks pretty darn good. To be honest, it lay down so thinly that the floor practically stopped shining even after the second layer. I think the really thin layers were there to give a good bond with the ground but weren't thick enough to not stain. Again, without recommendations, it seems to me that it worked very well in the first half of the floor. I must stress that the floor looks really great from a distance and in daylight. But at night with the built-in lights you can definitely see the spots from above. In addition, this material scratches much more easily than the factory pre-paint. So unless you have a good reason to seal your planks, or you really want a shiny floor (although it looks great!), or your floor is already damaged, this may not be the best option.