Varnish  Varnish is a clear transparent hard protective finish or film. Varnish has little or no color and has no added pigment as opposed to paint or wood stain which contains pigment. However, some varnish products are marketed as a combined stain and varnish. Varnish is primarily used in wood finishing applications where the natural tones and grains in the wood are intended to be visible. It is applied over wood stains as a final step to achieve a film for gloss and protection. Varnish finishes are usually glossy but may be designed to produce satin or semi-gloss sheens by the addition of "flatting" agents. The term "varnish" refers to the finished appearance of the product. It is not a term for any single or specific chemical composition or formula. There are many different compositions that achieve a varnish effect when applied. A distinction between spirit-drying (and generally removable) "lacquers" and chemical-cure "varnishes" (generally thermosets containing "drying" oils) is common, but varnish is a broad term historically and the distinction is not strict. The word "varnish" comes from Mediaeval Latin "vernix", meaning odorous resin, itself derived from Middle Greek "berōnikón" or "beroníkē", meaning amber or amber-colored glass. A false etymology traces the word to the Greek "Berenice", the ancient name of modern Benghazi in Libya, where the first varnishes in the Mediterranean area were supposedly used and where resins from the trees of now-vanished forests were sold. Early varnishes were developed by mixing resin—pine sap, for example—with a solvent and applying them with a brush to get the golden and hardened effect one sees in today's varnishes. Varnishing was a technique well known in ancient Egypt. Varnishing is also recorded in the history of East and South Asia; in India, China and Japan, where the practice of lacquer work, a species of varnish application, was known at a very early date. The Tang Chinese used medieval chemistry experiments to produce a varnish for clothes and weapons, employing complex chemical formulas applied to silk clothes of underwater divers, a cream designated for polishing bronze mirrors, and many other useful formulas. Because of flammability concerns, many product containers list safety precautions for storage and disposal for varnishes and drying oils as they are flammable, and materials used to apply the varnishes may spontaneously combust.