You will need to strip the wax and polish off the floors. It will take a few treatments. You will most likely need to screen and re-coat the floors afterwards.

Murphy's Oil has wrecked your finish. Don't ever use it on any type of wood floors.

Oil soap, oils, and waxes should NEVER be used on a floor. You ruined it. To fix it, all of that contamination has to be stripped back to bare wood. A refinish. A screen and coat won’t work. It won’t stick to the contaminated and flaking finish.

Even with a refinish, you’ll have issues with a new finish adhering well because the lotions notions and potions have contaminated down into the gaps between boards. Nor will scrubbing with denatured alcohol remove all of those traces in the gaps. Test a small area for a refinish before you commit to the whole. You may need to replace if it too starts to have adherence issues.

Sorry to say (as mentioned above) you have just ruined a wood floor. It is possible (ie. with dozens of hours of hands-N-knees scrubbing) to get 99.999% of this stuff off. But these floors will NEVER be refinished.

Beeswax is a known contaminant that gets past the finish and into the wood. Murphy's Oil soap is a known contaminant that gets past the finish and into the wood. Both will contaminate the wood for several millimeters. And that pretty much negates a full sand/refinish. With both chemicals on there (yes...beeswax is a chemical...as is everything in our universe) the damage is compounded.

You need to remove the beeswax stuff and the Murphy's oil. I know Murphy's oil has a stripper that will remove most of the Murphy's. But that won't touch the beeswax. The beeswax will require it's OWN chemical remover.

A professional should be able to get most of this stuff up at a cost of $2/sf or so. If you want to try it, you are welcome to call the makers of BOTH chemicals and ask them how to chemically strip the product off your floors.

If you want to clean a hardwood floor, you simply need 2-5 gallons of water and a drop of dawn. Damp mop the floor and then towel dry to get rid of water quickly. Nothing else is really needed.

ugh, agree. We did get on hands and knees and rub with a microfiber cloth...and yes it does make it a lot better...but the sad reality is I can’t do that for the entire floor. we tried the dawn as well, but the buffing Works better.

Im so beyond mad at myself.

Also, I misread the part where you said “to clean a floor use dawn” which you meant as an overall statement and not for this particular case. I wish I would have known that. I have to start looking for a professional in my area to help me with this, I’ve dug myself a deep hole.

The 'drop of dawn' is for a normal (non-wax coated) polyurethane finish. The 'drop of dawn' is not an option with the gunk on this floor. It will simply add insult to injury.

If you want to keep trying you are welcome to purchase a gallon (yep...gallon) of Windex Original formula (has 5% ammonia). Use the windex to soften the Murphy's oil in a 2ft x 2ft area. Let it sit for 30-60 seconds and then wipe up with clean cotton cloth. Keep working the area until the cotton cloth (new one every time) comes up clean (no yellow). Then move to the next spot.

The only thing I do NOT know is how the Windex will react to beeswax. That's a completely different product.

Just want to say so sorry mommabear. But thank you for posting as others will learn from this. Let us know how things go.

update...whatever is on the floor does flake off if I scratch it with my nail. looks crystalline in appearance. We can’t find someone to take a look at the floors locally due to CoVId. Hopefully, this all blows over and we can get a floor doctor in ASAP.

Can you show a photo of what is flaking off and what is left behind? I'm hoping that the flaking is the stuff you put on it and the original finish is left behind.

Looks like the original finish under the flaking. The flaking is crystalline powder. After I scratch a section with my nail Ill clean it up with a dry paper towel and you can see my beautiful floor! If I use a wet

paper towel it will re-spread the haze.

Last question: how do you think I can get the faming to come off faster? I wish I could scratch my floor with my nails, but min hoping there has to be a faster way!

You've discovered that mechanical abrasion (scrubbing) takes it off. A professional company can come in with a screening pad that will remove most of it.

The old fashioned 'polishing machines' (the one's that grandma used to own to add/remove polish from her linoleum) with scrubbing pads will work. But you would probably have to purchase one...with the right pads.

A buffer will create too much heat and cause the build up to melt into the existing finish. You will remove some, but not all of it.

Try using a red buffing pad. It is durable yet, soft enough not to scratch the finish. If, it comes up easy, you can do the entire floor by hand. You will need to get in the beveled grooves also. A wide plastic trowel can work, also.

I would still opt for chemical stripping, wet sanding, buff and re-coat versus getting on my hands and knees for 8 hours.

I would suggest purchasing a Bona cleaning kit and using it regularly. Over time it should remove all of the soap residue. I wold allow as much of the polish to wear off as possible bu eventually someone will have to carefully remove it using an ammoniated cleaner like original Windex. Ammonia can chemically damage wood flooring so it should be used sparingly and not be allowed to puddle in the bevels.

I missed if you wrote it but I assume the floors were there when you moved in. I'd speculate that they were rather shiny, likely because some misguided person applied acrylic polish. These can spruce up a tired looking floor but aren't scuff or wear resistant and eventually wear or peel off.

Some people complain that Bona cleaner leaves a haze. I sell an alternative from Woodwise that generally gets better reviews. You can find it on Amazon in bulk.

We moved forward denatured alcohol. It works well, the gummy coating is so hard to remove. We’ve called 6 people but everyone is booked solid. We are taking it few square

ft. at a time.

Your big problem was bees wax-...It never hardens and always stays soft and smeary.....and then you added a soap to it.
I would try mineral spirits to dissolve the wax.....does pretty much what the alcohol does but doesn't dry as fast so you can let it sit for a few minutes so soften the wax.
I also would try to fasten a couple of scotch brite scrubbers to a mop to make it easier.
Keep at it....and think of the money you will save.....and the fun you will have....( emoji here!)