20 Best Semi Transparent Deck Stain For Pressure Treated Wood (2023 Updated)

Redwood semi-transparent oil-based stain: before and after pictures. This playset was coated twice and used 4 gallons out of a five gallon bucket. The stain is oily and wipes off metal easily; not as easy off of plastic.

The five gallons was well mixed. No noticeable separation or layering of the stain when first opened. It was still stirred before application though. Brushes, rollers, and pads were used. This stain would work well in a sprayer.

This stain seems less viscous than a solid stain. Imperfections in the wood show through this stain. The second coat gave it a consistant appearance overall. Light colored wood filler will show through this stain no matter how many coats are applied.

I would use this again only on wood that has a consistent (previously stained or bare wood) color at the start of the stain application. Power washing marks will show through this stain even with two applications.

Surfaces remained oily to the touch for many hours after the second coat was applied. Unsure how long the color will last. Good price for decent stain. 4 stars overall. This site states that the pictures were too big to upload.

I stained both sides of a more than 300 foot, four foot high cedar fence, and I could not be happier with the results. The stain was very forgiving, easy to apply, and has a uniform color despite some inconsistent application on my part.

It also dried quickly holding up to a storm 16 hours after the project was completed. I did power wash several days prior, and it being a two year old fence, I had dry wood to work with when I applied the stain.

It did come out a bit darker than the image on the can shows, though part of that is certainly from the fence being cedar to begin with, and the end product is a wonderfully rich color. This was comparatively inexpensive to other brands I considered.

Highly recommend.

I would very much like to recount my original review on Ready Seal Stain company. When we started this project we ordered redwood after doing some further research on stain colors I found that alot of people ended up with orange tints when staining their fences and this is because of the wood that the fence was used to construct it.

Some woods in their state have a yellow his to them causing the outcome to look orange. After speaking with one of the reps at Ready Seal who suggested doing the second coat in mission brown to counter out the orange we found that it worked perfect.

It’s a but Darker than we originally wanted but the orange tint is gone. And the strain looks beautiful. Sorry Ready Seal you have our business for life.

New cedar deck built in 2020 in Zigzag Oregon. I went to Clackamas Miller Paint and bought Storm System type 2 sealer at $53ish a gallon. I have had nothing but problems with the sealer. The first application last about 6 months.

Looked failed and beat. In the summer, I cleaned and scrubbed the deck for 2nd application. FYI Oregon had record dry heat. Applied 2nd application. This time it only lasted about 2 months. Called Storm’s “customer service” for help, and got the run around.

Finally after weeks of waiting for Storm to call me back I proactively got ahold of Storms technical support. The support agent had an opposite answer for every question. He was very well rehearsed at playing both sides of the fence on why the sealer failed.

It tells me that this is not the first time this company or agent had someone calling for help because of the Storm System sealer had failed. Buyers consider yourself tipped off regard this product. Expensive and doesnt work.

Take your money elsewhere.

Bought 2 cans. One was black walnut, the other was blonde. Stirred like crazy but won’t turn dark. Also neither can seals the wood. Using Thompson’s sealant, the rain bubbles on top of the wood. With this product, the rain is quickly absorbed.

NO SEALANT.

This is a good oil stain product that looks great . This was a semi transparent oil stain that went on evenly soaked into the wood and didn’t clump. I am extremely pleased with this product.

I started using TWP products several years ago based on the poor results I was getting from the widely advertised well known products. I have never been disappointed with how well this stain holds up to the weather and sunlight.

In my opinion its the best stuff out there.

Installed a cedar wood fence for our backyard, after a few months we noticed to wood was starting to fade so we applied a coat of this product and our fence look new! Really happy with the results. Would definitely recommend for anyone with a cedar wood fence.

Applied per wet/wet instructions. Last fall I was quite pleased with the results of staining my deck with Defy. However when I returned from my winter home in May, I was quite shocked at how poorly it survived the winter.

I have photos of how it looks less thana year of use (8 or 9 months). Undoubtedly the worst stain I have ever used. Larry Bulinski.

Defy Extreme is a great wood stain. Butternut is a medium dark stain, similar to an aged cherry or light walnut. Following the directions for prep is important and using care in application will give you a very beautiful deck or porch!.

In the past I’ve used latex primers, alkyd primers and other recommended wood sealer/primers to prep for outdoor painting and have seen the effects of weather on my exterior home projects including porches and railings.

The last bunch of years i’ve been using Flood CWF-UV water based as either a sealer without paint and as a primer under exterior latex paint. One project was a raised boardwalk made of treated 2×6 lumber.

The Flood held up under traffic and the paint stayed on nicely. I just go with the Flood now. It seems to penetrate better than the primers. The natural dries slightly yellowish. If I get drips I can see the runs but it always dries perfectly.

I’m no expert but I much prefer the Flood for exterior wood projects now.

Our pergola was installed a few months ago and in need of being stained. Traditionally, stain is applied after the wood has been weathered for a year, but with this stain, it allows you to either apply to new wood or weathered wood.

I like that this is self-priming and that it has stain and sealant in one, cutting down on the workload. Since our pergola requires a ladder, I was also looking for a product that would not have to be applied every year or two.

This solid stain protects up to 5 years on decks and 15 years on fencing and siding, so I am optimistic. Due to temperatures and rain, I have been unable to prep and stain my pergola properly, but I did a test on one of the pieces of board remaining from our project.

Since our patio is in the sun nearly all day, the UV protection is a must and should help the stain last longer, thereby protecting the wood. The mildew resistant coating is also an added benefit I like since I live in the humid south and it can be easy for surfaces to mildew if not properly treated.

I applied one coat and two coats on my sample board. The one coat shows quite a bit more of the grain, whereas the required two coats provides a more solid, protected surface. I found it helpful to back brush to get the stain in the dents and crevices and to leave a wet edge while working.

I only did 1 board, but I used a 1″ brush and the wet edge is a must to encourage uniformity. Although I only did a small sample, I am satisfied with this solid stain. It provides even coverage and I can’t wait to get it applied to my pergola.

Olympic Exterior Wood Protector Water Base Semi Transparent Redwood Stain made our deck and fence look so professional, Our fence looked so old and needed something, and this was the ticket to bringing it back to life.

Olympic Wood Protector Semi-Transparent, COLOR: Redwood Semi-Transparent. Is a durable semi-transparent stain that provides a subtle natural redwood stain color and allows the natural wood grain and texture to show.

Exclusive Scuff Guarf stain formula gives the wood a tough finish and an enhanced level of protection. 100% acrylic latex wood stain formula is self-priming and cleans up easily with soap and water. It does take time putting this stain on but its worth it in the end.

I recommend Olympic Exterior Wood Protector it looks and smells like cedar. Everything ive used it on looks great. For all exterior wood. Bare wood,Finished wood , Old reclaimed wood , Stained or unfinished wood This stain is great for wooden decks and fencing and thats what I used it for.

I wanted to keep my fencing looking good and preserve the wood which was our deck. Olympic Exterior Wood Protector, protects for 3 years its mildew resistant, UV protection, waterproof sealer, you can also use a roller or a sprayer.

You will love this product.

This product seems to work as advertised, but I’m not sure it’s been down long enough to give a good review (applied 2 weeks ago). The stain applied very nicely and it was the color I expected. It added a little color but allowed the wood grain to come through.

It dries quickly – so you have to work with a purpose. When the first rain came – water puddled up and didn’t absorb into the wood. The can did arrive damaged. It didn’t leak but it was definitely dented and bowed.

I’m surprised it didn’t leak.

Applied this exactly how the directions indicated onto a BRAND NEW deck, 6 months later it’s peeling and flaking off and looks like garbage. Absolute waste of money. Do not buy this product.

Very thin consistency makes it fairly difficult to use. Yesit did the job but with some difficulty. Still, the project came out fairly good.

Recently had a small porch built off our 100 year old cottage. The wood used was treated having lots of wood knots, which are very difficult to cover up. My wife wanted painted but I knew that just regular paint wouldn’t cover up the knots.

I took a chance-so I bought KILZ® Waterproofing Semi-Transparent Stain. I thought nothing ventured nothing gained. To my wife’s surprise and joy the KILZ Waterproofing actually worked. The knots were gone! Now KILZ is my go to stain!.

So I picked this up in store because I needed a quick deck stain and sealer. There were three “colors” (tan, brown, dark brown) but all were the same type, tint base deck stain and sealer. I figured it would be colored already.

Think again. It’s just a semi-transparent sealer. There was not an employee anywhere around the paint department to mix in the stain color (why it’s not already mixed I don’t know, considering they advertise colors on the can).

Even if someone WERE available to mix in the stain color, you would not find out that you need that done unless you pop the can open, come here to read reviews, or scroll down pages of instructions to the *caution* section on the manufacturers site.

It says nowhere on the can that you must have the color added. Very misleading. I prepped my deck, was ready to start, popped the can open and was sorely disappointed. Now I have to make another trip back to the store to have color added or buy something else.

Such a waste of time and energy when all they needed was a little text on the can that says “make sure to get the color added before you leave the store” etc. I have yet to find out if the product is any good as I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to even go back and get it colored.

So frustrating.

Such a big difference in our deck. It was looking old but this product brought it to life again. Get so many compliments. A must have

Less expensive than Ace Hardware plus free delivery vs 130 mile round trip to Ace. I have used this product for 20 years now on log home and redwood deck. Product quality is high and consistent. If you apply product thickly you will end up with longer cure times and some gummy surfaces.

This penofin product is really great. The results bring out the woods beauty. I put it over wood the had a water sealer. Even though I thoroughly sanded the fence, not all the seal was off. This causes the oil to be shinny when it covers the sealer.

Better to do it on bare wood.

I used Redwood to paint pine siding of my cabin. The product was very easy to apply with super stainer paint brush and clean after. Good coverage. Redwood color transformed the cabin beyond recognition while covering imperfections.

It simply looks beautiful. I got lots of complements from the neighbors. I’m a very happy customer.

This product appears to be fantastic! My deck has needed attention the last two summers, but Illinois weather has not cooperated. It’s been too rainy and the temperatures have been too high including the humidity levels.

Ready Seal defies those weather barriers! After stripping the previously used product from the deck and cleaning away the caustic residue, we waited two days for the deck to dry well. Application of Ready Seal went exceptionally well.

Amazingly no start-stop marks could be found. This product blended well with no extra work. We applied with both roller and brush. For such a large deck the product did an awesome job of coverage. After one coat the water repels so well – it’s like a new waxed car, the water just beads up on the wood.

This was the results after only six hours before another rain passed through the area! Looks like maintenance should be easy and a follow up application can be applied in temperatures of 35-90+ degrees.

I’m so glad I found this product. I will definitely be using it again!.

store has online in stock but had none This is not the frist time this has happen so i have to travel 20 miles to get instead 2 miles

This appears to be a good product. Put it on a huge pergola last week. The redwood really soaked up the stuff. It did not leave an oily sheen/shine like Cabot’s Australian Pine Oil based product, which I was hoping for, as this product has 3 oils in it’s basis.

Environmental forces have greatly reduced the VOC content of most finishes, including these outdoor wood coatings, so we’re all left with reduced true benefits, other than hopefully a more sustained environment.

I may give it a second coat in Spring, as we’re in a new (8 year old home) place with unknown stain history on the pergola.

Love their transparent stain. One of the easiest stains to apply. Heard mixed reviews on their semi and solid stains but this line of Superdeck product is great

Finally found a Great oil based stain that actually penetrates the wood. I used it on a exterior deck.

We had our older large deck and big privacy fence prepped and painted in early May 2022. We got lucky and it was optimum painting weather the entire time. The team that did the work was phenomenal. They washed, power washed, replaced a few boards, and sanded before painting.

We picked the Arborcoat in seagull Gray on the deck, and it looks spectacular. 4 Weeks later, the cleanability of the paint is not great. I have to use the pressure wash setting on the hose to get dirt and mud out.

Dried flower petals and their colors almost need to be scrubbed out. I’m pretty sure the rust marks from and old half barrel flower pot are permanent, even though the drips were seen after the first rain and the barrel was moved.

It’s really disappointing after spending so much money on paint to have it be so high maintenance after only a month, makes me worry that it will start peeling or chipping within a year. Again, the color itself is beautiful.

This Paint is probably better suited for a covered patio with no flowers.

I am a mother of a 1. 5 year old and was primarily concerned about paint odor and toxicity, and wanted to invest in a high quality paint that would make my job easy since painting with a toddler is not for the faint hearted.

Let me just note that I have painted with 2 other zero VOC paints in the past: Mythic and Colorhouse. Mythic to my knowledge is no longer available to the general consumer, so I won’t waste time on Mythic, but Colorhouse paints like a DREAM compared to BM’s Natura line.

Natura was exceedingly drippy, had poor coverage, and was very unforgiving of my starts and stops that inevitably happen when caring for a toddler. I had to paint extra coats to even out mistakes, and take extra time when applying to avoid drips or uneven painted areas.

This paint is not for the beginner painter. If all you care about is no VOC and no odor, you can learn to use it (use a high quality roller, use a spotlight, go slow, double check your work frequently), but if you also value an easy to work with paint, go with another paint!! My paint job took twice as long due in part to this terrible paint, but you can work with it if you are in the unfortunate group like me who bought the paint and had to stick with it.

When I switched back to Colorhouse paint at the end of my project, it felt like magic since it was so much easier to work with! Colorhouse is a brand that has staked its reputation on producing a non-toxic paint that is also high quality, and at about the same price point I would say throw Natura in the trash and go with Colorhouse if you have the option.

Unfortunately for me, I have to have Colorhouse shipped as it is not locally available, but looking ahead that is what I will be doing for all my future paint projects. Benjamin Moore, if you are reading this, the only thing that will make me rescind my review is if you send someone to finish painting my house and send my family on a tropical vacation since I lost my summer due to this terrible product.