Wood wax advice

[WarriorN]

I want to get some sort of furniture polish/ oil/ wax that would help keep some older pine bits I have looking paler rather than orange.

I looked at ronseal white ash and wasn't sure if it was more of a film/ paint?

Or do I want liming wax?

At the point of melting a white oil pastel into some beeswax and turps to be honest 😆 my mum often made her own.

One bit of furniture is looking rather dry and needs a polish.

Lime wax is a very white finish and you have to rub it off hard as well.
Get some bits of wood and try a few

Thanks, that's not really what I want.

I may well do some experimenting with white oil paint and normal furniture wax.

Google is telling me microcrystalline wax is better for keeping unyellowed (weird I know but I have some from my art project days.)

Oooh. Wood bleach. (Or just bleach!)

Look up osmo wax. Really great range of colour finishes and great quality. Perfect for pine but make sure you have really truly gotten rid of the varnish first, if it is varnished.

Thanks - it's probably had a bit of wax at some point but not much

I would use a hardwax oil. A bit more durable than wax. There is one whose brand I forget which has a finish that is specifically for avoiding changing the colour, and leaving it the same as bare wood.

This one
https://finneyswoodfinishes.co.uk/Finney's_Invisible_Oil

Hello OP, I have experimented with and refinished lots of wood furniture and have never figured out how to get a natural finish without yellowing without a minimum of white paint wiped in and scraped off. The problem with finishes like oil and beeswax is that they naturally yellow with time. The best results I have had are with white chalk paint with a bit of grey or blue tinting. Then you can protect with wax which will give a fantastic finish, ( but by no means waterproof).

Do save yourself a lot of time and experiment on bits of left over wood to get the finish you like. HTH ;)

The problem with products like that described above is it is an " emulsified oil" , which can mean a lot of different things. Emulsified meaning water based, so oil in water? What does that mean ??? It it is probably an acrylic . I.e. it is a plastic finish. OK, these finishes remain transparent and do not yellow , which is a good thing. But they feel plastic!
I have purchased and tried many many of these products- but not this specific one- don't live in UK- and wasted lots of money to find all these are basically the same thing, whether described as oil, varnish, emulsion, whatever!!
They are basically a transparent acrylic ( plastic/latex) finish, have a liquid, milky base and are found in hundreds of home finishing products. All are petroleum based products and there is nothing natural about them! They are also very difficult to remove with no easily identifiable solvent, except sanding off to remove. Be forewarned before applying!

Hardwax oil is not acrylic and not petroleum based. It is just made with oil, wax and a bit of solvent. I've made my own as well, but tbh I find it not worth the hassle.

I believe the natural one has some sort of white pigment to combat the yellowing, but you wouldn't notice from seeing it or applying it.

Wood itself discolours with age. We have some maple wood, looks a very pale colour when new, but gets darker and warmer over time (unfortunately, but pretty much all woods do, especially pine).
I have a pine door I have just used clear wax on (Briwax IIRC) . It looks very natural and pale, but it will darken and go more orangy I know.

In the workshop I use a polyvine clear (water based), which is a finish that doesn't discolour the wood as much as many products do, and is hardwearing, but more of a PVA type than an oil or a varnish. The wood will still darken, though.

Even a uv resistant solvent based varnish can't stop woods changing colour with time. I;ve used that in a conservatory for a pine winowsill and it did keep it paler than anything else I have used would have done. But it did still darken a bit.

(I'd not use oil pastel myself, always hated drawing with that stuff! 😉)

I'm putting down wood floors (oak) and I checked out a test of floor oils. Previously I'd used tung oil, which is a great oil, but does darken the wood straight off. The test I saw, I think one of the osmo Polyx ended up the lightest after application, so I think we'll be going for that- a local wood supplier recommends it.

Wood itself discolours with age.

Very true, I have some reclaimed oak parquet which I stripped right back to bare wood and it is a very different colour to the oak trim which I bought new to put around it.