Save Your Hide! - All About Leather Care

Its a staple of luxury in every car and one of the easiest ways to maintain the value of your car is to clean, protect, and condition your leather seats.

Leather - The Real Stuff was Alive Once

Hopefully this doesn't come as a shock, but real leather comes from the hide of a cow. Leather is skin and just like our own skin, it requires a healthy dose of vitamins and a constant supply of oil. This oil, called sebum, comes from the sebaceous gland beneath the skin and provides all sorts of protections such as waterproofing and lubrication. Even though some people aren't too happy when they look in the mirror and see a shiny forehead, they shouldn't worry because natural oils are just one part of healthy skin. When the leather is no longer part of the cow, it can't receive the oil once supplied to it, so lets talk about what we can do about it.

Leather, Leather, Everywhere!

Leather is used in various parts of the interior of your car such as the seats, steering wheel wraps, door panels, center consoles, and gear selectors. Not all of the leather in your car is actual cow hide. Most of it nowadays is a synthetic leather made from plastics partly because its cheaper and easier to manufacture. Your seats and other interior leather pieces are subjected to all sorts of wear and have to endure acids from spilled soft drinks, melted candy (eeewww), crayons, dirt and grime, and even hold up against scratchy fabric from clothing (think blue jeans). Leather is extremely durable and forgiving so its not hard to guess why its a popular material used for so many things. But every material has its limits and not paying attention to the needs of your leather can have some irreversible consequences.

All You Need is Love​

Since the leather is subjected to so much daily use, the natural oils within the material can be quickly depleted and over time the leather will dry up and crack. So what can we do to help our poor neglected seats? Well, first of all, once the leather is already cracked, the damage is unfortunately already done. Let's start first with how to care for new seats.

Brand new seats are soft, supple, smell amazing, and have a light lustrous glow. To protect the qualities that everyone loves, an application of leather serum and conditioner will help protect your seats from stains, acids, fading from UV light, and cracking. Leather conditioners contain some of the same stuff that helps keep living skin healthy (vitamin E for example) and will help maintain and protect the newness of your seats throughout the year while also preventing staining, fading, and cracking.

For moderately worn seats that may already have some light cracking, the best approach is to first use a cleaner made for leather and clean the entire surface.This will remove light stains, dirt, grime, and other oils. Other cleaners can be too harsh and will cause a lot of damage. If you're thinking about using a window cleaner, just don't do it. Next, since the pores of the leather are clean, its now time to apply leather conditioner which will be absorbed into the pores and help bring back and maintain the soft and luxurious look your seats once had.

Like many things in life, take care of the things you love and you'll be rewarded.

Cheers!

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