Review on Bona Pro Series Hardwood Floor Refresher - 32oz by Brandon Show

To be clear this product is a permanent urethane top coat and not a traditional removable floor polish. 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 event, I used it on a new 3/8 inch solid strand prefabricated bamboo floor, which is not exactly what Bona recommends for an 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 scraps 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 very little 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 layer. Of course I was applying it to a brand new floor and the cleanliness of the new precast planks may have contributed to some surface tension that was causing the film to blister like that. I'm not qualified to make any recommendations, but I can say that the first half of my floor that has had a very thin "primer coat" of this product applied with an applicator from another manufacturer 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. Even without giving any 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 (even though it looks great!), or your floor is already damaged, this may not be the best option.