Waterlox Review

When I was researching options for sealing my butcher block island top, the one product I kept coming across was Waterlox. It seems that it's a combination of waxes and oils that absorbs into the wood and hardens to make it waterproof. Waterlox isn't available locally to me, so when the time came to finish the countertop I had to order it from Amazon. It was pretty pricey as far as wood finishes go, but I needed something that would be food safe and also completely waterproof because our sink is in the island, so it seemed like this was the only option.

My walnut butcher block countertop took three coats of Waterlox. It's been a year and a half and the finish is still beautiful: it hasn't discolored at all and still repels water. The finish did change the color a bit, but it deepened it to a beautiful amber brown. You can see here the finish before, which is just the basic, raw, builder grade walnut butcher block from Lumber Liquidators:

And the finish now, coated in Waterlox, a year later:

I loved the way that the Waterlox went onto the island so much, that when it came time to finish the dining room table I had to buy more to use it on that, too. Since the dining room tabletop was just a piece of red oak plywood, I really wasn't sure how it was going to look. I was afraid of looking at the table and looking like it just had a piece of plywood on it. But the Waterlox really gave it a beautiful, finished look.

Pictures can't capture how beautiful and smooth this feels underhand, but you can really see the sheen here. The plywood has actually transformed into a real tabletop.