Cleaning up essential oil from wood

Question

A badly closed bottle of essential oil spilled out on my wooden wine shelf and soaked through, dissolving the paint from anything it touched. No amount of washing with dish washing liquid helps. It's still there all sticky and smelling very intensely. I would like to repaint the shelf, but I'm worried the paint won't stick to the wood unless I somehow clean up the spill. What can I use to remove it?

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Answer 1

• Blot with alcohol on a clean rag (repeatedly) to draw as much as possible out of the wood.

• Wash with trisodium phosphate. (commonly sold in paint stores for painting prep, since it's gone out of more general use due to water pollution issues with excess phosphates in wastewater streams.)

• Prime with a shellac-based primer to contain bleed-through.