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Last Updated: January 1, 2019
Search Google with a phrase like “is lemon oil safe for guitars” and then click on any of the search results that lead to a guitar discussion forum. Prepare yourself for some fireworks. Conversations about lemon oil often get ugly–with volleys back and forth, assumptions, anecdotal evidence, misinformation, even personal attacks.
This “Great Lemon Oil Debate” (as I like to call it) has raged for years.
It’s not likely that I’m going to end the Great Lemon Oil Debate with this article. No matter what I (or anyone else) write, this debate will continue. However, I’m hoping that the information I outline here will help you make an informed decision about using lemon oil on your own guitar’s fretboard.
So, Is Lemon Oil Good or Bad for Fretboards?
So what’s the deal? Well, it depends on what you mean by “lemon oil,” which is why there is so much arguing: neither side of the debate really understands the nuances I’m going to outline here.
When people argue about whether lemon oil is good or bad for guitar fretboards, it’s because they’re throwing around “lemon oil” as a generic term. In actuality, there is a spectrum of purity/strength we need to consider whenever the question of using lemon oil comes up.
Pure, Full-Strength Lemon Oil vs. “Lemon Oil Products”
At one end of the spectrum we have pure, full-strength lemon oil that has been pressed directly from the peels of lemons. At the other end of the spectrum, we have “lemon oil products” that usually contain only a small amount of lemon oil or, in some cases, no lemon oil at all (more on that below).
Pure, Full-Strength Lemon Oil
Pure, full-strength lemon oil, cold-pressed directly from lemon peel, is indeed bad for your guitar’s fretboard. It’s intense stuff. Despite being an oil, pure lemon oil can cause drying of your fretboard and, with excessive or long-term use, can break down any adhesives that might be holding your frets or fretboard binding (if yours has it).
This kind of pure lemon oil, as well as other citrus oils pressed from peels, contains d-Limonene. D-Limonene is a key ingredient in products like Goo Gone, Simple Green, 3-IN-ONE Degreaser, etc. and for good reason. At full strength, pure lemon oil can be used to remove adhesives, grease, and even sanitize surfaces. Great for cleaning and sanitizing hard, non-porous surfaces. Way too intense for the fine wood of your guitar’s fretboard.
“Lemon Oil” Products (Fretboard Lemon Oils)
Luckily, manufacturers of the popular fretboard lemon oils understand everything I just outlined above. That’s why these fretboard oils contain very little real lemon oil. The last thing any guitar product manufacturer wants is to damage their customer’s guitars. It’s bad for business.
See my recommended list of guitar-safe lemon oils down below.
So, many of the popular guitar lemon oils sold by well-known guitar companies are comprised primarily of other oils–usually mineral oil, which is a pretty good (and cheap) fretboard conditioner by itself. They contain only a small amount of real lemon oil, and the yellow color comes from artificial coloring.
In fact, some contain no real lemon oil at all. Instead, they’re just mineral oil or some other other fretboard-safe oils, with lemon scent and yellow coloring added.
For this reason, most of the guitar lemon oils on the market are 100% safe when used in moderation on your guitar’s rosewood or ebony fretboard (don’t use lemon oil on maple–more on that below). The tiny bit of lemon oil they might contain will help remove dirt and sweat, while the remaining majority that isn’t lemon oil will condition your fretboard and bring back a rich luster.
So, when prominent guitar gurus like Dan Erlewine, Bob Taylor, Godin Guitars, and others recommend using “lemon oil” to clean/condition your guitar’s fretboard, they’re not referring to pure lemon oil. They’re telling you it’s okay to use one of the many guitar lemon oils out there which are made for guitar fretboards; those which contain very little (if any) pure lemon oil.
Dunlop 65 Lemon Oil
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D’Addario Lemon Oil
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Peavey Lemon Oil
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A Warning About Petroleum Distillates
The Peavey and D’Addario lemon oils have a warning on their labels letting you know they contain “petroleum distillates.” This means that any rags used to apply lemon oil need to air out in a well-ventilated area afterward, otherwise they can spontaneously combust. The Dunlop 65 lemon oil doesn’t have a warning on the bottle, but play it safe and follow the same precaution with your lemon oil rags.
So, Which Ones Contain Real Lemon Oil? How Much?
Unfortunately, I simply don’t know how much actual lemon oil is in each of the examples above, or which ones may not contain any real lemon oil at all. All I can say with certainty is that you can proceed with confidence that they won’t harm your rosewood or ebony fretboard. Many people, myself included, have used these 3 lemon oils and had really good results. As long as they’re used sparingly–only a tiny dot of oil on each fret 1-2 times a year–your fretboard will look, feel, and smell great.
Never Use Lemon Oil on Maple Fretboards
Maple fretboards are a slightly different animal than darker woods like rosewood or ebony. Do NOT use any kind of lemon oil on your maple fretboard–regardless of whether the product contains actual lemon oil or not. Instead, stick to fretboard conditioners like Music Nomad’s F-ONE Oil (may favorite) or plain mineral oil. These don’t contain lemon oil or any artificial colors that can discolor maple.
In general, oil isn’t necessary on a maple fretboard. You can get by just fine by giving it a firm rubdown with a soft clean cloth and maybe a little moisture from your hot breath, if necessary.
Play it Safe: Avoid “Furniture” Lemon Oils
Some people use what I call “furniture-grade lemon oils” on their guitars–usually because of the larger quantity you get for about the same price as a small bottle of guitar lemon oil. Personally, I keep things that are made for furniture away from guitars. Why? A guitar is not furniture. You don’t sit, eat, or walk on your guitar; It’s a precision wooden instrument built to produce musical sounds.
Because it’s a musical instrument, anything you apply to a guitar’s wooden parts can, over time, potentially have an effect on the sound quality.
I can’t say with 100% certainty that “furniture” lemon oils are bad for your fretboard, but play it safe and just avoid them.
With furniture, on the other hand, it’s all about sheer durability and looking good, which is what you want in a hardwood floor or a table. So, manufacturers of furniture products tend to add ingredients that might solidify, build up, etc. and therefore have an adverse effect on a guitar’s sound quality. I also have no idea what effect these additives have on glues such as those that might be holding your frets or fretboard binding (if yours has it).
So, here’s the bottom line: I can’t say with 100% certainty that you should not use furniture products on your guitar’s fretboard, or that they’ll damage it in some way. What I can say is… use them at your own risk.
If You’re Not Sure, Why Risk It?
I have a general rule when it comes to guitar care: if I’m too unsure of the ingredients in something (whether they’re safe or not), I just don’t use that product on my guitars or anyone else’s. There are too many alternatives out there, including alternatives to the “guitar lemon oils.” There is no rule that says you have to use a lemon oil to clean and condition your fretboard. It’s just one of many ways, and one of many products available.
This is all I use now. Safe for all fretboards, even maple: Music Nomad F-ONE
That said, I personally do not use lemon oil on guitar fretboards. This isn’t because I’m “anti lemon oil.” It’s because I don’t know how much actual lemon oil is in any of them. So, I don’t know if I’m just over-paying for fancy, lemon-scented mineral oil. Again though, I want to reiterate: The reason I don’t use lemon oil is simply because I’ve found a non-lemon oil fretboard conditioner that I like better.
My all-time favorite is Music Nomad’s F-ONE Oil, pictured here. It’s all I use now because it’s safe for ALL fretboard types, even maple.
Final Thoughts
The next time you hear people arguing about whether lemon oil is good or bad for a guitar’s fretboard, understand that both sides have good intentions, but it’s doubtful that either understands the nuances I’ve outlined in this article.
See if you can inject some logic into the argument by asking whether they are referring to pure, full-strength lemon oil (bad), or one of the many highly diluted guitar lemon oils (good).
If you want to use lemon oil on your guitar’s fretboard, then play it safe and use those made specifically for guitars. I’ve recommended 3 good brands up above. Stay away from pure or highly-concentrated lemon oil, essential oils, or lemon oils made for furniture, floors, etc.
Follow these basic guidelines and you’ll probably be just fine using lemon oil on your fretboard once every 1-2 years, and your fretboard will look and smell great.
Question:
Do you have a strong position “for” or “against” using lemon oil? I’m also generally curious to know what you do like using on your fretboard, lemon oil or otherwise. Let me know in the comments section down below.
Resources:
These sites, articles, and PDF’s all played a role in informing the research of this blog post:
We had this argument about “acidity” in lemon oil used (cold pressed) for aromatherapy as a cleaner or “conditioner” for rosewood fret boards in an “Introduction to guitar” class at university. One guy kept a bottle in his case.
The instructor threw his arms up and said “let’s find out and END this, TODAY.” He made the call, and that afternoon he and a few of us went to the Chem building… the O Chem professor was way too busy to deal with trivial stuff, but a lab TA brought us a piece of plain old litmus paper. He said “Don’t expect much, oils for the most part are almost never acidic”… he put a nice big drop on the litmus, and…. NOTHING. Neither acid or basic. Dude logs in to the Uni library, gets on the citation index online, finds some “journal of agriculture and food chemistry” paper, so we go to the science engineering library, and withing five minutes we’re looking at some paper of quantitation analyses of citrus oils… turns out that lemon oil is absolutely devoid of any organic acids you might even imagine would be in it (in contrast, mandarin oil had acidic components making up about 0.06 of 1% of it). Chem guy mentions that if you were to heat/boil such an oil, some changes in the chemicals in it could change, but that even the hottest fingers playing weren’t going to have any effect.
Hard-head lemon oil-hating dude would just not recant… the next week the instructor mentions the argument and the “research trip” and that he really didn’t want to discuss it… instead he whips out a then-recent Dan Erlewine book that says use lemon oil on the fretboard, and NOT on the finished parts of the guitar, and asks if anyone disagrees with some well-known guitar repair and care guy… NOBODY objects (at least out loud).
Also, it’s disingenuous to claim that Erlewine implied using something like Dunlop 65 lemon oil. His book was released in the early 1990s, before Dunlop even offered Dunlop 65 Lemon Oil product.
I agree with this. Lemon oil is not acidic nor is it alkaline. You could argue that it is not even neutral, because these terms refer to hydrophilic, especially water based, environments.
Even the mandarin oil that might contain organic acids, is not acidic by itself, also humidity might make it so.
But for the lemon oil, which does not contain acids, it’s pure nonsense to say it was acidic.
That does not mean that it won’t dry out wood and it WILL of course, if used in great amounts, do all sorts of bad things to glue and bindings… although I’m not sure other oil based products won’t, they might be a bit less good solvents.
I’m glad you clarified this for me, because I wasn’t able to tell from Mike’s story/comment what the actual question or issue was.
So, it sounds like the beef here is with the sentence that says lemon oil is “highly acidic” when, in fact, it’s not. I’ve removed those specific words, so that all is right with the world again!
You may need to refresh your browser to see the text change.
I’ve used Formby’s Lemon Oil for 18 years with great results. It contains less than 1% d-lemonene (I found this on the MSDS sheet) and is mostly mineral oil. I sometimes use naptha to get really nasty stuff out and hit it with Formby’s after, but the oil works great on its own.
A giant bottle of Formby’s is the same cost or less expensive than products marketed for guitars and it’s 16oz a bottle. I’ve used a fifth of it in all that time on five guitars and a little bit of furniture.
Hi Ted, thanks for that info. It sounds like you’ve done your homework on the ingredients, and found something that works well for you. I’ve never tried Formbys Lemon Oil so I can’t confidently recommend it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good product. And you’re right: even an 8oz bottle could last a lifetime. I have 6 guitars, and my little 2oz bottle of Music Nomad F-One is only about 1/4 empty… considering you only need to put oil on a fretboard about once a year, if that.
Just remember (for anyone who might be reading this), don’t use it on maple fretboards. It’ll discolor them, and maple boards don’t really need to be oiled anyway.
I’ve used F-One for years,simply because I don’t want added perfume in any product I use and because it’s a fact that lemons contain citric acid and it sounds reasonable to me that seed and wood oils, which F-One is made of, must be better for fretboard wood.
All my guitars fretboards still look and feel good.
And it lasts. I’ve not even used one bottle for 13 guitars over 2 years where a couple of them hadn’t had any oil for the last 100 years,
Hi Poul, thanks for the reply. I agree… that little bottle goes a long way if you use it correctly. Just one little dot of oil on each fret, only about once ever 1-2 years, and that bottle will last forever. I own 6 guitars, and my little bottle of F-One (which I’ve had for 3 years now) is still about 3/4 full.
I’ve been watching the Lemon Oil wars for years now, ever since I bought an Alembic bass. This is a great article, but it directly contradicts Alembic’s recommendations, leaving me confused :-/ Any thoughts as to why they might recommend pure lemon oil?
http://www.alembic.com/support/care.html
“We recommend using pure lemon oil (available at health food stores in the aromatherapy section), but any transparent lemon oil will do nicely.”
I gotta be honest Brian, that’s really… REALLY odd advice, so your confusion is well founded. I’ve never heard of someone (least of all a well-known company like Alembic) recommending something that we in the repair/maintenance community know is bad for your fretboard over the long term. Honestly, I’d give Alembic a call or send them an email and just double-check. It’s not out of the ordinary for a company’s website to have incorrect or outdated information on it–it happens to the best of ’em. Feel free to tell them what you read here and even link them to the article.
This is such and odd one–so I’d love to know what they say about it. Using pure lemon essential oils. Yikes. And they recommend twice a year. Double yikes!
However, here’s the bottom line: You’re definitely not going to do any damage to your Alembic by NOT using the lemon essential oil they’re recommending on that page. All the oils I recommend in this article are great for fingerboards, and aren’t going to cause harm if used sparingly (1-2 times a year, max). People have been using them for years with great results.
Timely advice for me. I have several acoustics and also build cigar box guitars – just applied furniture lemon oil on a fretboard for the first time and the last – my next set of builds will also have maple fret boards timely advice not to apply lemon oil on these – will use Music Nomads product – my customers and I thank you
Joe, no need to worry too much about the furniture lemon oil. One or two applications will be fine, I’m sure.
If you’re building guitars and wanting to give raw fretboards their 1st initial layer of protection, the F-One oil probably isn’t the best product. F-One is a “maintenance” oil–better for general cleaning and oiling later down the road.
For raw rosewood and ebony, my favorite product is ColorTone Fretboard Finishing Oil (it’s great on raw rosewood bridges too). Be aware that it’ll make the wood a bit darker though. Most people like this effect, but it’s good to be aware of anyway, so there are no surprises.
For raw maple fretboards, you’ll want something like Tried and True Original Wood Finish, or a similar oil that won’t darken the maple.
Thanks again for your advice Bobby!
You’re welcome. Feel free to reach out any time.
Hi! Excellent article!
I’d like to know what I can use to clean a FINISHED MAPLE fingerboard. It’s finished with a thick nitrocellulose Glossy finish.
Thanks!
Francisco
If your fretboard has a thick, glossy finish, you clean it the same way you’d clean the glossy finish on your guitar’s body. It’s lacquer, just like the body. So, as long as you haven’t worn through the lacquer anywhere, you have a few options:
Give those a try and let me know if you have any issues (e.g. you can’t seem to get rid of certain gunk or grime).
Thanks you very much for your reply! I’ll try those tips.
I have Dunlop 01 Cleaner and Prep. Can I use that on the finished maple fingerboard?
Also, the back of the neck is satin finish. What can I use to clean that?
Thanks again,
Francisco
No, the Dunlop 01 is for cleaning bare (unfinished) rosewood and ebony. If your fingerboard has shiny lacquer on it, you need to instead do what I outlined here. Just use a slightly damp cloth, or use the Music Nomad MN100 cleaner that I mentioned.
For the back of the neck, it depends. “Satin” can mean many things. If it is a satin lacquer finish, then the Music Nomad cleaner I linked can also be used on the back of the neck–it’s safe for gloss and satin lacquer finishes. However, if it’s natural (unfinished) wood, you only want to wipe it with a dry cloth, or possibly #0000 steel wool if it’s really dirty. Plain, clear mineral oil can be used on bare wood too to spot-remove some stains from light-colored woods like maple.
Excellent article.
When my son-in-law passed away 🙁 , I “inherited” an electric guitar, a Yamaha RGX 312. Pretty nice guitar, and very easy to play. The only problem is the frets could rip my hands to shreds. The humidity in Colorado is very low, and the fingerboard is very dry and has shriveled up quite a bit, leaving the frets sticking out. I figured I’d put some oil on the fretboard and see if it will swell back any before I file the frets. I’m going to try the Music Nomad F-ONE Oil and see what happens.
I’ve seen many of the arguments you pointed out about lemon oil, and your comments make a lot of sense. So, along with the F-ONE, I guess I’ll buy a fret file.
I look forward to future articles from you.
Bob Udell
Hi Bob. Before you reach for a fret file, try this first…
Instead of filing the fret ends back, you want that wood to expand back to where it was (or as close as possible). To do that, it needs to be stored in an airtight bag (large trash bag works) with a guitar humidifier for 1-2 weeks. When I get a guitar with this issue, I actually get more aggressive and OVER humidify the guitar for awhile (but I know what I’m doing, so be careful doing this yourself). After about 1-2 weeks, the razor fret, as we call it, is either gone or barely noticeable.
So, try that first: keep the guitar inside a case or sealed plastic bag with a guitar humidifier for about 1-2 weeks. Don’t worry too much about over humidifying, just keep your humidifier damp by re-wetting it as often as necessary. When re-wetting the humidifier, don’t let the guitar set exposed to the open air for more than a few minutes. While re-wetting, close the guitar case or reseal the bag.
If you still have razor fret after a couple weeks of this, you can give it another few days of this treatment, or you may need to have a repaairperson file those fret ends back a little (but I only file fret ends as a last resort).
BTW, the oil will be good to condition the fretboard, but the oil won’t help this issue.
Thank you for your time and effort!
The answer is spot on and all company names and products mentioned above are welcome indeed.
Although it is helpful enough for me at this point, one day I may find myself interested in understanding the actual mechanism of the processes occurring, while curing fine woodwork with different substances. For instance why is maple so different from rosewood in this case?
Cause, is it all a result of centuries of trail and error wisdom or is it a well known chemistry (and practical experience)?
There are a few reasons you shouldn’t use lemon oil on maple fretboards:
First, because it’s so tight-grained, maple just doesn’t tend to dry out, so there’s really no need to add oil to it. It’s kind of pointless.
Second, most maple fretboards do have a thin finish on them–to seal against sweat, dirt, etc. It may feel “natural” but that’s because the lacquer finish has been made satin, rather than glossy. This is done because maple is a light-colored wood that will easily get dirty and discolored if left unsealed. So, you really can’t get oil into the wood even if you wanted to: it’s sealed.
Third, after some years of playing, you’re fingers will naturally begin to wear through small bits of the lacquer on the fretboard. If you add lemon oil, those little areas will absorb oil and become darker than the rest of the fretboard. It’ll look terrible, unless you’re purposely trying to get that “old maple mojo” look on your fretboard.
Fourth, some maple fretboards are sealed with oil, not lacquer. What about those? Again, because maple is a very light-colored wood, adding lemon oil will make the wood darker, which isn’t what most people want to do.
So, save the lemon oil for rosewood, ebony, and other porous, dark-colored woods. For maple, if you must use oil, plain clear mineral oil or Music Nomad’s F-One oil will work just fine.
We use Bore oil. My other half, Tom, who is an active member of the Guild Guitar Forum said that is what most of them recommended. When I asked him about lemon oil, he reiterated what you said above. So great article.
I’ve used bore oil as well (in fact, I’ve got a small bottle setting right here). It’s another good, cheap alternative to fancier concoctions or lemon oils.