How to Clean Leather Clothing to Make it Last a Lifetime

 

"You have to treat leather like your skin! It needs to be looked after. That means I only wash it when it needs to be. I also clean my leather at home. It is more environmentally friendly and softer on the material than taking it to the dry cleaners."

Arizona Muse in Les Classiques; the Richie Shirt and the Olivia Leggings

• "If it is a light stain, use a baby wipe or a damp cloth to take it up. It helps to dab the leather and remember not to get it too wet!"
• "Like your skin, leather needs moisturising so it doesn't dry out when you put water on it. Use a light moisturising lotion to keep it soft by massaging it into the leather, as you would your skin."

"If the stain is big and stuck, take it to an eco-dry cleaners like BLANC!"

Arizona Muse in the Angie Biker Jacket in Black

"Be careful with rain! I always make sure to waterproof my leather clothes with a leather spray to be extra safe! Especially as some of our thinner garments, such as our shirts, will crinkle and lose their softness if exposed to a lot of water. Or - wear a coat! Our SKIIM Paris coats and jackets are durable enough to withstand the weather, and patent leather is waterproof!"

"Make sure that you use a cloth the same colour as the leather, or a white cloth, as you don't want the colour of the cloth to transfer to the leather"

"Don't rub it! It will crack and be unfixable."

Watch the video below for a step-by-step guide to how to clean your leather at home! 

Check out the Natalie Leather Pant here, featured in the video!

I am going to show you how to clean your leather, because everyone is wondering how to clean their leather from home. This is actually very easy, it is like your own skin. What your skin needs every day in your daily routine? Lotion. Why? to moisturise it, to keep it fresh and completely clean. So for the leather, it is exactly the same. 

If you want your leather to last, there is no need to dry clean and dry clean all the time, because that can damage the texture of the leather. Although, if you use a sustainable and respectable dry-cleaner like BLANC, which they respect the leather and the nature of it. 

I would say if the stain is not deep, I would clean it yourself. All you need is either lotion - whatever you use for your skin - Nivea, L'Oreal, La Mer, just go easy with it. Or some leather product like a leather cleanser, so whatever it is it is easy to clean, it could be like make-up, lipstick, powder - voila! 

Now, if it is a stronger stain, like if you are in a restaurant and you have a cocktail - of course that happens quite often! - then pouuf! Oopsy, you spill it, especially on the white leather, then I would take it to the dry-cleaner because they will be able to get it out to perfection. 

So for the easier way, if the leather is white, a white cloth is better because then it is tone on tone and the colour doesn't transfer onto the white leather. Or, maybe some baby wipes, very easy as well.

So, now I am going to put a stain. Some bronzer... dark! Ooo scary, right? So you can see it is quite orange. Now let's also do some eye shadow, purple one. Let's try [to clean] one stain with the baby wipe because it is easy, you always carry that in your bag. I just turn, very softly, you can see the stain is right there [on the wipe]. So I just turn and turn and it is gone! You can see that?

And then I let it dry a little bit. Now I want to do with some lotion. Why? Because the stain will slide [off]. Even if it is not dirty [anymore], it will still nourish the leather to keep it very smooth and very soft. Especially because our leather is so very soft, like a buttery leather. The thinner the leather is, the more attention it needs to keep its softness. Et, Voila! So now I can show you the perfect white leather back to white.

So that was my technique. You can easily do it at home. 

So option one, if it is very dirty, like some wine, a very dirty, strong stain, then that would be dry cleaning. 

But the second option is if it is make-up, dust, mud - easy - baby wipes, lotion or just lotion will be enough. So, I promise you, super easy, don't be scared. You can also even test on the reverse of the pant for instance, you can try here, if you don't want to risk anything. But trust me, it is very easy to do, just take care of your leather as you take care of your skin.

So now we are going to talk about your leather with water. Leather has been my best friend, to be honest, because our speciality with SKIIM is to use the very thin, very soft leather. If you wash the leather, it works, its just the quality and softness won't be the same, because it tends to get harder and is less delicate on the skin. And the thing with the SKIIM leather is the buttery softness, it is like baby skin. So that is why I have given you all my tips to keep your leather as soft as possible by suing the lotion bu adding some clean and nice product.

What do you do if it rains?

Of course there are products such as waterproof spray. Water will not go through into the leather and the colour won't transfer. So leather trench coats, biker, that is fine. But the thin garments, like shirts, I wouldn't stay two hours in the water because it is not necessary, and it will kind of damage the skin [leather] by doing some wavy, hard shape or something like that. So, the best thing to do is to always put the waterproof spray, but the best thing to do is not to stay a long time in the water - unless it is patent!