How To Clean Leather Fast and Free

Do you need to know how to clean Leather?

More important that knowing how to clean leather is knowing what NOT TO USE on leather.

How to clean Leather

This information applies and answers the following questions

How to clean leather Car Seats?

How to clean a Leather Sofa?

How to clean a Leather Bag

How to Clean Leather Shoes

How to Clean Leather?

Don't Use Saddle Soap

Yes this is meant for leather, but leather saddles! If a saddle goes even harder or darker, this is ok; it is meant for a very different type of leather than your average car seats or leather sofas.

Don't Use Baby Wipes

Even I Did This
This is one of the worst things you can do to any leather. Baby wipes do have chemicals in them, for good reason, usually they are used to neutralize urine (which is a kind of acid), and to do this the wipes must be alkaline. This will destroy the nice finish that’s on many leather seats in cars for example.

And yet, I’ve done it. Before I knew what damage was being caused I used baby wipes to clean up after… well… a baby! Babies are just so cute and yet so messy, and the wipes are always around. I was lucky and managed to correct this and restore the leather before it was too late, but I wish I’d of known.

Don't Use Fairy Liquid

Or any dish washing liquid. They contain a lot of salt (same as a dishwasher does) to help break down the food and this beaks down leather.

Don't Use Furniture Polish

Good quality polish contains silicones, a little like oil or lubricant (this is why you can spray polish on a hinge to stop it squeaking) and so these create a barrier and eventually destroy the finish. Short term shiny, long term dull is effectively what happens. 

Do Use...

The fastest and one of the best ways to clean leather is also the cheapest, or free for many.

Use a very nice cloth, ideally a high quality microfiber cloth and water with a little Dove soap.

But you said don't use soap

Most soaps are alkaline, but Dove soap is ph neutral, meaning it's not an acid or an alkaline and so perfectly safe for leather. Together with the water, this will rehydrate the leather preventing cracking.

How to clean Leather with Soap and Water the correct way?

  1. On your vacuum cleaner, you'll have that nice soft brush part, start by using that to remove any bits of debris without scratching the leather
  2. Using any cloth rub with dove to create foam.
  3. Using the microfiber cloth and the water, collect some of the foam (we only use the foam of the soap, not the actual bar of soap)
  4. Ring out the microfiber cloth so that it is damp with some of the foam on it
  5. Gently wipe the leather and start from step 3 until completed. DON'T 'rub' hard, rubbing hard will damage the leather finish, you'll notice once it's dry. 

Need more 'power' in your cleaner

Rarely soap won't get the results you want without excessive rubbing. In these situations, we always suggest our TRG Universal Cleaner. It's been tested on 100's of types of leather, from car seats, sofas to Jimmy Choo shoes.

To clean a specific area with stubborn dirt

  1. Drip some Universal Cleaner onto a microfiber cloth
  2. Gently wipe leather

I hope you've found this part of the course useful, next time we’ll look at how to condition leather to prevent dirt settling in and help prevent colour transfer from clothes to the leather, which ruins lighter colored seating (usually because of jeans!)

If you have any questions for comments, then pleas do Contact Us or use Facebook comments below. I'll get back to you.