Overtime, our precious leather accessories may get covered with dirt, when this happens, we do not need to discard the items, and rather we need to carefully clean them, to prevent them from getting damaged.
To effectively clean leather and make it shine without ruining it, there are some basic and inexpensive ways this can be achieved.
Items Needed
- Dry cloth
- Bucket
- A Vacuum Cleaner
- Clean water
- Good leather polish that contains lanolin
- A good leather spray
- A good leather cleaner
- Mild Soap
- A pair of gloves
- Clean off the Dust with a Clean Dry Cloth– This may be the most obvious way to care for your leather items. Especially, sofas. Dust may accumulate on parts of the chair that do not come in contact frequently with the human body. This accumulated dust may be unsightly and will need to be wiped off to restore the beautiful look of the leather item.
To start off, you will need a clean dry cloth, to gently scrub off the dust from the chair. You must avoid using a very damp cloth to clean the item to avoid introducing moisture to the chair and thereby encouraging the growth of mold and other harmful fungi’s on your beautiful leather piece.
Cleaning may take place twice or thrice a week. This depends on your schedule and how often the leather accessory is used. For leather accessories like boots, bags and watches, they can be cleaned when they are about to be used, rather than cleaning and storing them away for future use.
- Polish your Leather Items– While it is good to clean our leather items randomly from time to time. To maintain the shine of the leather items, they need to be polished with a good leather polish. These polishes are specially produced with special ingredients that help keep the leather soft and supple. This singular feature can prevent the your leather from having cracks and tearing off, thereby reducing the life span of the items.
Another great benefit of polishing our leather items is that it helps it maintain its waterproof properties. It is true that genuine leather is made from animal skin, therefore, it needs to be polished to enable it have a longer life span.
Polishing should not be a regular activity; rather, this may be carried out when the leather items begin to look old and worn out. Polishing will help bring back the shine of the items and help them look new again. Items that are not used frequently should be polished once or twice a year. But, for frequently used items, they should be polished once in two months.
- Use Only Leather Cleaners on your Leather Items– A major mistake most household users of leather items make is in using any cleaning agent to wipe off dirt from the leather. This is wrong and can ruin the leather. There are special cleaning agents that are specifically produced for leather items. This is clearly labeled on the products to avoid any mix-up. The manufacturers of cleaning agents specify which item is produced for wood, plastic, metal and leather. They even go further to specify which cleaning agent is for what specific color of leather. Some popular colors are black, brown, blue, neutral and others.
- Spray on some Lubricants on the Chair- If achieving some degree of shine on your leather piece is all you desire and you are certain that there is no dust on your chair, then, you may use a good leather spray to achieve more gloss on the leather piece.
Do not over do this, as it can have a downward effect on your items in the long run. Nevertheless, it is a great way to revamp a worn out piece.
The methods mentioned above are very easy to do ways that you can clean up and restore the beauty of your leather items. The materials used are also easy to get at the local store. They are also not expensive and can be purchased with ease. Never forget to use only leather cleaning agents on your items and also, never leave your leather items damp due to cleaning.