Water Rings and Blow Dryer Magic

I did a ton of really impressive crafts in December and January, honestly, I did. But, as my life explodes with new opportunities and lots of work, I don't have much time to write about them at the moment. In fact, since school started 5 weeks ago I have had no time for any crafting at all. But today, with a Sunday afternoon to myself I decided to do a little house cleaning and I learned something so impressive I had to share it.  

My task list for the day was nothing spectacular (really, it was time to throw away my dead Rosemary Christmas Topiary) but one goal was to deal with a water ring on my kitchen table. Now if you have any wood furniture in your life, or like me, were raised in a house where just about every surface was made of wood, you know the terror of lifting up a glass to find a white chalky water ring. Horror of horrors, the furniture is ruined! Hide before Mom sees it!

I have this wooden kitchen table circa 1990 which I use primarily for crafting and grading that is a reject hand-me-down from one of my grandmother's moves (yes, it is the sibling of the ugly couch). I don't worry much about this table. It has seen more than its share of hot glue and Mod Podge and stood up surprisingly well. But, in January a big mug of hot tea sat on it too long left a pretty serious scar. 

Based on internet suggestions I tried scrubbing it with "non-gel toothpaste"and buffing it with "equal parts olive oil and vinegar" to no avail. My friend suggested leaving mayonnaise on the ring over night, so I was about to break down and go buy a bottle of that filth (mayo and I don't get along) when I stumbled across the Homemade Mama's blog suggesting that one possible solution is to go at the ring with a blow dryer. Yes, a blow dryer, on hot at full blast, holding the blow dryer just an inch or so from the surface. Sounds like lies, right?

Well, mostly because I didn't want to put on jeans on a Sunday, I pulled out my trusty blow dryer, set it to hot and held it really close to the water ring. In less than 2 minutes the ring had faded to this. What!?

Still feeling a little bit like this was a hoax, I kept at it for another 2 minutes. Then, because I was sort of trying to see if it would "undo" this "fix", I wiped down the whole table with a some Old English furniture polish I found in the dark crevices of my cleaning supply cabinet (did I buy this? If so, when?) But the ring was gone, 100% gone. I even waited for the table to cool back to room temperature, to make sure it didn't show back up, before snapping this photo.

I have no idea why this works. Logically, a blow dryer should not be able to accomplish what a month in very dry, but warm winter weather couldn't. But it did. So, there is your magic trick for the day. Abracadabra. Blow dryers cure water rings.