Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Very disappointed in this product. Followed the directions which were pretty simple, rolled it on with a smooth finish foam roller, and let it dry for 3 days as directed. The result was beautiful - our ugly 1970 pink counter top was gone, replaced with a shiny, dark grey ("storm" color) which contrasted nicely with the brown backsplash tiles that I had just painted white. Both my wife and I were thrilled... until we started using it. In no time - and I mean *minutes*, we had 3 visible scratches in the surface And this was while we were still trying to be careful with it, figuring that even with 3 days, it might still need a little more time to cure. I could not believe how easily this finish marred. Thinking that despite our efforts to be gentle, we must have carelessly dragged something sharp across it, I did a test in an out of the way corner - I pressed my fingernail into the surface to see how hard I needed to push to make an mark. The result - not very hard at all. Not hard enough to make you say "ow" if I pushed my fingernail into your arm with the same pressure. By my best estimation, this coating has approximately the durability of a piece of untreated pine. Standard pine. It might make a fine coating for a piece of furniture, but it is absolutely insufficient for a kitchen countertop. Further, it is not particularly water resistant either. If you leave a drop of water on the surface for a few minutes without wiping it up, the surface will be discolored where the drop was for about 15 - 30 minutes afterwards. Eventually it dries up and returns to it's original color, but clearly there is some absorption going on, indicating it is not very waterproof, and I question if permanent damage would occur if someone were to leave something wet on it all night. I had high expectations for this product, and was very disappointed. My advice is to go with one of the more expensive solutions. I have not tried them yet, but they seem to get good reviews here. Update Jan 2, 2012: I am lowering my rating from 2 stars to 1 star. I wrote the above shortly after finishing the job, and was still basking in the thrill of no longer having pink countertops. However, looking back, I really regret the time and effort I put into this. Six months after applying this I now have 30 - 40 chips / scratches where the old pink is showing through. Many are on the front edge which things have bumped up against it, others are from knives or other utensils striking the surface, some are from appliances... I don't even care about the money I wasted on this. It was the hours I spent carefully applying the coats to create a nice smooth finish, the stench, and the 3 days of waiting for it to dry, keeping the cats off it, not being able to use the kitchen that really get me. Do not bother with this. Someone just asked me about covering it with a poly afterwards (in the comments to this review), and I see another reviewer also suggested this step. Since the comments don't automatically show unless you click on them, I am going to repeat here what I said there. I don't think that is a bad idea, but I don't really know why you would start with this product in that case. If you are covering it with a durable poly, you can use almost anything underneath, and not have to pay $25 / quart or suffer 3 days of a nasty smell and lost use of your kitchen along the way. You probably have a long dry time for the poly anyway, so I would use something simpler to apply with a short dry time underneath.