Ciranova ? Pink Blocker can be used with any competitors brand stain. I have not experienced any issue. You do need to buff with a maroon pad prior to applying a stain with other manufacturer's WB PU. I have not applied any other WB except for Ciranova's own WB PU over Pink blocker. No time for experimenting. Pink Blocker is a reactive stain. It is water soluble. Ciranova has a binder in their invisible line finishes : Ecofix plus, Woodlook Plus and Oculto. It helps prevent reactivating the stain and moving the color around. Reactive stain can be applied after pink blocker. Still needs buffing with maroon pad. You can use the regular reactive stain on red oak. It will not be as intense as if, it was applied onto white oak. Aquavintage is a two part reactive stain. hardwax oil , oil poly or wb poly can be applied. If, using WB poly, use one of Ciranova's invisible poly. Ecofix for light natural colors. Woodlook for whites and grays and Oculto for dark tone reactive stains. It is water soluble, competitors WB PU will move finish around. If, you want a WB system that looks like a oil finish. Ciranova's invisible line is what you want. It will look as natural or raw as can be with the protection of a WB system. For added protection, you can do two coats of their invisible finish and two coats of Fortico. Fortico is comparable to Bona Traffic HD and Loba's Supra AT. You can top coat Ciranova's invisible finishes with competitors WB finishes. That will help keep cost down. Only downside, if, you run into issues. The tech support will not help you. Use your own discretion. Unico is the same as RMC. It's a single coat oil system with the added benefits of being able to apply a WB PU over it. It's soft, top coat with one coat of Titan or two coats of Fortico for the added protection. Titan is better than RMC. Note: every manufacturer alters their binders slightly in their finishes to make it unique. It creates issues with other manufacturers products. You would need to test samples to make sure there are no finishing issues. I have used Ciranova's reactive stain with RMC and Pallmann's oil with no issues. I have tried applying a competitors WB PU over Ciranova's reactive stain with no success. It moves the color around. But when used with Ciranova's invisible PU, no issues. You can apply dewaxed shellac over the reactive stain and apply a competitor's WB PU or just apply oil base poly. Keep in mind oil base poly will turn yellow. For aged look, it does not look good. If, you want the aged look use Ciranova. you won't be disappointed, unless your guy does not know how to use it. For a stained look, you can use any other brand. The colors are all the same, besides Duraseal, which has more colors available than anyone.

Both Loba and Rubio are "special" finishes. Special in that not everyone is A. aware of them or B. trained on them. Loba Invisible is a water based finish with a low-gloss finish (it is their "matte" finish in the AT line). It is for those people who want the LOOK of oil finished without the MAINTENANCE of oil finished. The cost of Loba (any of their options) will be the up-front material costs. They are expensive but thankfully you get MORE than you pay for. More benefits. More scratch resistance. Excellent longevity. As a water based finish, it has different working times (wet edges are very different time frame than oil based finishes). And the mixing can be confusing for a refinisher "trying it out" for the first time. Other than the learning curve and the costs, it is relatively easy to use...ONCE the refinisher understands the process. In fact many people praise how easy it is...AFTER they get used to it! The Rubio is different. It is a relatively low-cost product to PURCHASE...but the costs come in the LABOUR. Rubio requires PERFECTION when it comes to sanding. It can take an extra 2-3 passes with the sander (and much higher grit levels) than a traditional/water based polyurethane. So...your refinisher absolutely MUST be trained on the sanding technique. If not, it will look ABYSMAL! And I mean crying and a sense of hopelessness - "How did this happen?" or "What do I do now?" are the questions often asked once a Rubio floor is mucked up. So Rubio has extra costs hidden in the LABOUR costs...but the material costs are quite low. And then there is the maintenance. Loba = none. Just basic wipe with damp cloths, sweep, refinish in 20 years. Rubio = much more. The homeowner will need to have ALL the cleaning and repair products ON HAND for the very first day of possession. The homeowner should pay the contractor to give a "maintenance" lesson before the hand over of the keys to the house. This should include scrubbing technique, cleaning techniques and then application techniques with both cleaning oils, maintenance oils AND the coloured oil (if you stain) should it be required to do a full patch at some time. The Hardwax oils are lovely. But they require certain maintenance. And in a lively household that can be spot cleaning and reapplying the finish if a stain appears. Water spots will need to be dealt with by a spot cleaning and reapplication of the colour/finish. Adding in the yearly "whole home" maintenance oiling" is another requirement. This can be done in high traffic areas every year...and then every 2-3 years you can move all the furniture out of the way and apply the maintenance oil over the entire space. You then leave for 6-8 hours and when you come back it should be ready for the furniture to be put back. Happily this can be done room by room as your home allows...which means it can take a week or more to do all the floors in all the rooms if you go one-by-one. You are welcome to hire these jobs out...but the beauty of the Rubio is it is supposed to be easy enough for the homeowner to maintain. But that means the homeowner has to take the time and the effort (out of his/her busy schedule) to do all the maintenance. Loba...simply love it and leave it. I'm far too lazy to deal with hardwax oils. Regardless of how I feel about the LOOK of them, I know darned well that I'm too lazy to take on 20+ years of homeowner maintenance. Homeowner, Know Thyself.

Thank you so much! I appreciate the expert advice. I'm definitely not an expert! I think I used the wrong term earlier - when I said 'raw'. What I meant is that that ideally the colour looks like natural wood, as close to white oak as possible - vs. something that turns pink, yellow or orange. We do want some shine, and are leaning toward a satin finish. So, in that case, would you still recommend Loba invisible? Concerned about durability, as we don't want to be fretting about the floors. These floors are rather yellow, which is why I asked about the UV blocker or stain. Edited to add: we also have the option of delaying this work and waiting until someone that can do both Bona and Loba is available. So, if Bona might be a better option, that's something we can consider. Quite possible I'm overthinking this ;)

Thank you, G&S, for responding so quickly. I appreciate your time. The new floor that I installed was unfinished. When I laid the Invisible down, I experience major lap marks. I think that I laid down too thin of a coat and it was possibly drying before I got to the next section. I continued to lay the second and third coats, thinking that the lap marks would calm down. They didn't, so I decided to sand everything down and start over. I was afraid to use a drum sander, so I used a rectangular "buffer". I used 60, 80 and 120 grit. Now, I'm thinking that I should have just done the full sand and started with the 40 grit. One mistake turned into another. Questions: Would resanding fix this? Should I use Loba Easy Prime? What do you mean by over/under wood? Thank you so much for your time and knowledge. Dale