Professional Paint Remover

This stuff works amazingly well but make sure you scrape it off the piece you are stripping in the time directed. If it dries hard then it's almost impossible to get off. It doesn't stink and it washes off with soap and water. To me it smells a bit like almond extract? If you do a lot of refinishing and don't want to use stinky strippers that require mineral spirits for cleanup, I highly recommend this. I've bought buckets of it over the years.

I made a lot of impulsive decisions while doing all the renovations on our Airbnb on one side of our duplex. Most were good or okay decisions. But then came the sink. To put this into context, let’s start at the beginning. I used a very nice countertop paint kit to cover up the hideous counters but it was recommended to seal it with epoxy for extra durability. I had never worked with epoxy before. That is it’s own story... there was epoxy everywhere. Some of it dripped through the taped barriers into the standard silver/metal sink. I tried so many things to get it off. The sound of steel wool on metal was ingratiating. The box cutter approach was dangerous. Meanwhile, I thought the silver/nickel of the kitchen faucet didn’t look right with the now dark counters and the more modern look we were going for. I compared the price of new faucets to spray paint... I obtained a can of black spray paint for metal and taped up the sink once again, perhaps halfheartedly. The faucet looked great! But there was mists of black spray paint that somehow made it on the sink bottom along with a few dribble spots. Feeling lightheaded from the spray paint fumes, i realized how easy it would be to solve the epoxy and spray paint issue by... just spraying the hell out of the sink and making it all black! Genius! It looked pretty good from the start. I sealed it (or tried) with some finish I had that said it was okay on metal. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would last. After our first guests, there was a chip in the sink paint. I grumbled about it — what careless people did that to my sink?? — but drew my weapon of choice once again. Problem solved. Or so I thought... After each guest there were more and more chips, flakes, scratches on my precious paint job. I bought different spray paint. I bought different finishes. I thought, “this will be better” each time. Alas, every effort I made turned out no different than the last. I came to the conclusion that either the sink had to go... or I did. But then a promising idea miraculously came to mind; if MORE paint wasn’t the answer, would removing it altogether be the saving throw? When this paint stripper arrived I am sure the Amazon van driver had no idea what power he was driving around the city with. I was on a time crunch with the next guest arriving in 3 days — would it be long enough to make this work, else fix another disastrous decision? It was enough — more than enough. I slathered on the goo half skeptically, half holding out hope. While the container said it could take several hours to a day and several layers, even the whole container, the layers and layers of various paints and varnishes started to shrivel up to be wiped away and never seen again under the first strokes of stripper. The whole sink was cleaned up and looking like a vessel within you’d actually be willing to was your dishes or hands within 3 hours. It would have been less if I hadn’t taken a break to eat. The grande finale was seeing the edges of those large droplets of epoxy start to curl up. This far exceeded my expectations — even the epoxy cleared up? Even the epoxy.

So this product works fairly well though not as well as the Sunnyside rapid acting remover. While it does remove paint, regardless of how well you scrape it up there is a thin sheen of paint and remover remaining that must be cleaned up by other means. The other Sunnyside product does not do this. So, three stars for this and another very important reason. This product while not obnoxiously odorous, permeates every surface of the entire house regardless of having windows open, fans blowing everywhere and the room where the work is taking place with all of its vents taped and visqueen over the door. Today, though it has been 4 days since I finished the work and the room I worked in is still isolated from the rest of the house, the house still smells faintly from this product. I realized that though the air conditioning was isolated from the room I was working in, the odor has infiltrated my recently replaced 6 months $50 air conditioning filter. So I need to trash that and get rid of it. I also realized that despite the odor being very low and not too chemical-ly at all, it is still very much a respiratory irritant and a respirator is a must. Sadly and most alarmingly, again despite the fact the house was open fans were blowing and the room where the work occurred isolated from the rest of the house, every soft surface in the house is holding the odor. Every piece of clothing worn during the work right down to the underwear is holding the odor. This can't be good, healthful or in any way the best way to do this job. I'm not saying not to use this product. There are other more traditional products that are distinctly more industrial and much worse while using them. But I am not certain that they have this problem with permeating the entire house and contaminating every single surface within it. I don't know how I'm going to clean it up. I don't know if I should be really worried about it or just consider it another nuisance. But I will not be buying this product again.