Caring for your leather is a personal thing. It has to do with what you like, your aesthetic taste and style. It’s all about how you want your leather to look like and the stories you want to carry it with you, through the leather. Whilst it’s all about what you want, there are some general principles you should know too.

• Hardiness and breathability of leather

With extra treatment on the already-sturdy hides, leather becomes more durable for use on articles such as shoes, bag, belts and more. Essentially, hides are animal skin, they are susceptible to cracking when dried out, or can be stained, etc. With the correct maintenance, the leather fibre will be able to “breathe” and stay in good condition for a long time to come.

• Leather and direct sunlight or heat aren’t good friends

Many of us are used to the concepts of placing water-soaked items in front of a heater or under the sun to get it dried out. But alas, that’s not the case for our leather! The heat will be a likely bleaching agent and culprit that causes leather’s natural oil to evaporate, dries out the leather, letting it age prematurely or its colour to fade. 

• Not all scratches are created equal

We use our leather a lot, sometime a little lesser depending on it is. But no matter how we try to avoid, scratches on leather may happen at time. It's all about how you want your leather to look like and that determines how careful you need to be with your leather and the care you need to undertake. Click here to learn more.

• It’s all about testing on discrete areas first

Every piece of leather is special and different. They react differently to different leather care solutions. Hence, consider sticking to the same if it already works well on the leather for you. Else, test the new solution on a discrete area before going full-scale. It may look like a lot of work, but this is the best way to avoid keeping your leather from turning out differently from what you expect. 

• Regular care and clean

We’re busy and we do sometimes neglect caring for our leather, we get that. But a few minutes to give it a good wipe down will do lots of wonder too. This will rid your leather off accumulated dust and dirt that can cause premature leather aging. Simply wet a non-abrasive cloth slightly and give it a good wipe!

And, of course, whilst there are different ways used to treat leather at tanneries, there are also different ways that the leathers are used to produce what you need and thus different ways of treating it depending on the role of that leather playing in your life. 

In the next few weeks, we will be providing some tips or specific basic principles when it comes to treating some of your leather articles. Here's the one for leather bag for you to start binging!

Stay tuned!