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How to clean leather without staining stitching

3K views 9 replies 9 participants last post by  A_Venables 
#1 ·
Hi Guys,

I have a couple of leather cleaning products but both seem to have a tint to them and i want to avoid staining the white & green stitching on my car, are there any leather cleaners that have no colour?
 
#3 ·
I may be a heretic, but I don't think anything other than water is necessary to clean leather.

Leather is an organic material. It gets its pliability from water inside the fibres. As long as it does not dry out completely, it remains pliable. The oils inside the leather are not volatile at temperatures that are ever reached in a car, even in the hot sun. However, soap does break these oils down. Many "leather care" products clog up the natural pores in the leather, not allowing water in.

By wiping leather seats down every now and again with a cloth dampened with water, some of the water gets absorbed by the leather, enabling it to remain pliable.

On my various cars that have been equipped with leather seats I have only ever used water to clean the seats and the seats all remained in basically the same condition throughout my years of ownership.

*braces for criticism* :tank:
 
#5 ·
Automotive leather is mainly whatever it's coated with due to its usage requirements and as with anything it's best kept clean and in the least abrasive way. Give it a good hit with your hand to bring the " dirt " to the surface so it can be brushed with a soft brush or vacuumed off. Then water can be used without just spreading dust etc into it.
 
#6 ·
Completely agree with the least aggressive products first, using a vacuum is generally a great first step but I would use a dedicated leather cleaner or leather safe all purpose cleaner to remove the dirt. I tend to use either a leather safe APC or if it is just a quick clean then I use a dilute rinseless wash and some MF cloths

On a show car the seats will not get dirty with anything other than a little dust but on a normal car a mixture of dirt and oils can be ground into the coating and so a little help is needed to remove the dirt.
 
#8 ·
Gliptones leather cleaner is very good, the blue stitching on my brera was quite dirty, a gentle scrub with the gliptones using a soft nail brush brought it and the leather up like new, it also removes any dirt from the creases and allows them to close back up.
Then moisturise with their liquid leather cream so it now looks and smells like new without the overly shiny finish many leather creams leave.
 
#10 ·
Ive tried a few cleaners and they all seem to be a waste of time, most I would imagine would have some harsh cleaning agent that isn't really necessary (and ive not noticed to have any great effect above the crème your going to use after anyway). Ive had just as much of a result using the crèmes on their own. I have tried a few of the supposed to be good ones and found the Autoglym to give the best and easiest results. Most will either leave a film or even a powdery deposit behind. The best was the Auto Finesse Leather Hide crème for what seemed like moisturising, but I didn't like the powder/white residue it left behind that I was cleaning up for a while after. The Autoglym Balm leaves a good finish and is available anywhere. I leave it on for a hour, then wipe off the rest. Never leaves any poor effects and smells nice too. Goes for the steering wheel as well. When using this on my old Corsa VXRs interior, I did see it darkened the red stitching, but this was only temporary while wet and didn't seem to leave any effect on the stitching long term.
 
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