Help - ruined wood worktops!

[Madridmum]

I have Iroko wood worktops in my kitchen which I oil with Danish oil, probably once a year.
Decided to oil them today, but cleaned them first & in my infinite wisdom I decided to use Cif cream (the lemon one) as I thought it would get rid of some stains & roughen up the surface a bit so the oil would soak in better.
To my horror it seems to have bleached the wood - even though I have put one coat of oil on you can see where I squirted the Cif before cleaning it! I am so annoyed with myself as I have looked after them so well for 10 years…..
Any suggestions please - I’m thinking my only option is to use a sander on them, but I’m worried it will be so much lighter than the rest of the kitchen as they have darkened so much over the last 10 years.
Thank you.

I’ve had success using oil (olive oil) on white makes on wood in the past. I wonder if it’s worth a try.

How did you get lines like that? Didn't you wipe it all over with a sponge or something. I think you will have to sand it and If it doesn't match any more you may have to lightly sand off all of the worktops and re-oil, on the bright side it will look like new when done.

I use flash or whatever cleaner I have to hand on my wood tops, never had a problem (yet). But I do have odd marks here and there so may need to sand them sometime soon. I'll just do them one at a time and work my way round the kitchen over a week or so.

check out Nancy Birtwhistle on Instagram or even ping her a DM. There is nothing that woman cannot sort!!

There might be an easier way to sort it out but we had an accident with oven cleaner and got them sanded down and reoiled. So it can be fixed.

Yes, I know it was a really stupid thing to do! I have used it in the past & just squirted the cif onto a cloth it was fine, but squirting it directly onto the wood has done this, even though I wiped it off and cleaned it several times with warm soapy water.
I might go into a kitchen ship & ask for advice, but suspect it’s going to be a job for a sander .

I did the same thing three weeks ago with spray bleach because the cat jumped onto the table. I'm waiting for a nice weather day to sand it outside.

Have you tried rubbing walnut on it? That can take out water marks (don't ask me how it works but it does).

You could try rubbing it out with a bit of solvent on a rag. Whichever solvent is recommended by your Danish oil- whether that is rubbing alcohol, white spirit or turpentine. Try it in a small spot and then let it dry. That just might do the job.

An update for those of you who kindly replied & offered advice & if you are still watching this thread!
After a lot of hard work - cleaning with sugar soap (advice from kitchen installer) sanding with very fine sandpaper, white spirit etc…then re-oiling, my island now looks like this…
In the end it was a happy accident as it looks the best it has in a long time!
Moral of the story - never use Cif cream on a wooden worktop!

Looks great OP! Glad you found a solution. Thanks for sharing. ;)
You might want to take notes of what you did exactly for next time. It is easy to forget what worked best. ;)