While decorating Ukrainian eggs at Easter, my wood dinner table got stained when some black egg dye leaked underneath a table runner, and went undiscovered till today.
The stain has ingrained itself right into the finish. I don’t know what kind of wood the table is, unfortunately (it’s secondhand), but it is varnished, so I don’t know if there’s any way I can get it out. Is there a stain remover that would work on such a thing?
Not likely. Chances are the dye has at the very least reacted with the top layer of the varnish, and depending on the permeability of the finish it may have worked its way into the wood itself. In either of these cases, the only way to remove the stain would be to remove the affected surface (varnish and possibly wood) and refinish.
In the event that the dye hasn’t reacted with or soaked beyond the varnish (in other words if you’re really lucky), a bleach solution may be able to remove it. Bleach appears to be the most effective on egg dye. Sometimes you need to let it sit on the stain for quite a while with the help of paper towels. That’s what I’d try first (Clorox Clean-Up is good for this).
It’s not an opaque stain, it just looks like a tea stain except black. So maybe I’ll be lucky…in any case, I have some Fantastik spray cleaner that has bleach, so I’ll go put some on now and let it marinate a bit. I might try scrubbing it a little with an old toothbrush as well, that should be gentle enough not to scratch the table.
You can try anything because something like that requires drastic measures. I doubt it will work though at least not completely. The table can’t tell whether you dyed it on purpose or if it is just a mistake. To make it pure again, you will probably have to refinish the entire table which is easy enough but you need to work on it off and on for an entire weekend. If you ever had a problem with existing blemishes or the table color, it should come out nicer than it ever was before.
This isn’t a tragedy, it’s an opportunity!
Yeah, you are pretty much looking at a complete refinish job, and probably in a darker color.
You could try covering the stain with a bunch of baking soda and letting it sit for a good while. I used that to remove the stain left by a rotten jack-o-lantern on a cheap wooden folding table.
I’m in luck!! It didn’t soak into the actual wood. I left the bleach cleaner on for half an hour and then scrubbed at it for about 10 minutes with a toothbrush, and it gradually faded. It’s totally gone now. Left a dull-looking spot, but a bit of furniture polish fixed that. Thanks for the advice! 
Hooray!
I am so stealing this for the next drama queen that flounces in my life.
Thanks!