The Leatherique "Spa" & Leather Care
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The Leatherique "Spa" & Leather Care
I was about post in reply to the post below about Leatherique when I realized that it was embedded in a thread about Wheel Shield. 
So, I figured it would be more helpful if I just started a new thread that is actually titled to something related. 
(we're all pros around here with OT posts! 
)
1)
Yes, you're absolutely right... it seems counter-intuitive to use an oil prior to a cleaner. However, Leatherique employs a completely different leather cleaning/rejuvenating process which explains the odd operational order.
First, other leather cleaners are merely surface cleaners. This is great for ongoing maintenance cleaning... especially if you clean regularly, preventing the dirt and grime from being embedded into the pores of the leather. In fact, frequent (even if brief and light) leather surface cleaning can be your best long-term defense against leather drying and stiffening...
It is the clogging of leather pores which ultimately causes the leather to become stiff and hard. Without pliability, the leather is bound to eventually crack and split as you sit and move around on it. In addition, clogged pores cannot receive conditioners and oils very well- further perpetuating the dryness and hardness. *Frequent surface cleaning can help prevent a great deal of this clogging.
Leatherique is the only system I know of that can physically unclog or purge the leather pores of the embedded dirt and grime. This is why it yields truly amazing results, especially on very tired leather. This is also why the application process is so different from anything else.
The Leatherique Process & How Differs from Others
First, the Leatherique Rejuvenator Oil (RO) is applied to the leather, ideally on a hot day or otherwise warm environment (although out of direct sunlight). It works best in a sauna-like environment. The RO contains a chemical which works its way into the pores by displacing the pores' contents. In other words, it pushes the grime and dirt out and to the top of the leather's surface as it penetrates into the pores, thereby taking the place of the grime and dirt. This takes several hours... we recommend at least 3-4 hours to make it worth your while and up to a couple of days. The longer the better, as it has longer to work. During this time, you need to check on it every hour or so, if possible, to add more RO in the areas which are needing more.
The result of this first step with the RO is this:
- Concentrated conditioning oils in the RO are now nicely placed in the base of the leather's pores, and
- All the dirt and grime, as well as the component in the RO which bonded to the gunk to help displace it, is now sitting on the surface of the leather. Yuck! It is a nasty, tacky layer that must be removed.
Never fear... Leatherique Prestine Clean is here to save the day.
Prestine Clean (PC) is then used to remove all the dirt and grime now sitting on the surface. This is the "elbow-grease" step... more so for leather in poor shape and less so for leather in decent shape. It sometimes takes applying PC over and over again to get it all off.
I personally recommend using a 3-bucket method: fill 3 buckets with warm water and dip your cloth or cloth-covered sponge into each of the 3 buckets one after another after each wipe down of an area. In other words, apply PC to the cloth, wipe/rub the area vigorously, rinse the cloth in bucket #1, then bucket #2, then bucket #3. Otherwise you will just keep dipping back into what will quickly become a bucket of very dirty water.
The Prestine Clean is the only way to remove this nasty, tacky film of dirt and grime from the leather's surface.
Once the surface is no longer tacky, then you're done. And, your leather will have never been so soft and supple, not to mention super clean!
(although your arms will be ready to fall off!) We usually treat our leather to a Leatherique "spa" once a year and use a more convenient and less time consuming process of a regular cleaner-conditioning system the rest of the time.
----------
By the way, if you use Leatherique on light colored leather it's particularly fun... although a little gross. My first experience with Leatherique was on black leather that was about 5 years old. It made the leather wonderfully soft! Then I tried it on tan leather that was only about 2 years old and which looked, on the surface, to be fairly clean and fairly soft. As the RO worked it's magic, you could see the grime and dirt come to the surface... in areas on the steering wheel where I usually put my hands, lines on the seat bottoms where legs would be, and a few other spots where one might assume frequent grabbing/touching occurred. Gross! Still, it was interesting to see the gunk rise to the surface like that. And, of course, the leather was super soft and supple afterwards too.
So, that's the long story about leather pores and how Leatherique works.
*BTW, if anyone reports that the Leatherique process left their leather in anything but pristine condition, I've found that it's likely just because they did not fully complete the Prestine Clean process to get all the surface gunk off.
2) Yes, Leatherique's strong suit is NOT marketing nor presentation.
Their bottles are sterile looking and their labels are rather ugly. We had to produce our own version of the instructions because their own version was not as complete as we would like, not to mention it was rife with grammatical errors. That said, they are amazing chemists and leather experts! They are also a very nice family-run company.
When asked specifically about the spelling of their "Prestine Clean" they replied that it was an intentional twist on the spelling of "pristine." Hmmm.
Questions? Fire away.
-Heather
So, I figured it would be more helpful if I just started a new thread that is actually titled to something related. (we're all pros around here with OT posts! )I just got the "Leatherique" kit from DP. I've decided to test it out on my wife's ten-year old, world-travelled, war-torn leather backpack first, since that will be a *real* test of how well it works.
I've finished with the first step of the treatment, so the second step will be tomorrow. So far so good, but there are two things that are weird:
1) When you have two products, one called a "rejuvenating oil" and the other called a "cleaner", it seems very strange to use the rejuvenating oil first, followed by the cleaner. With just about every other two-step cleaner/conditioning process, you use the cleaner first, *then* the conditioner. I'm glad I read the directions first!
2) Leatherique has evidently been in the business for close to 40 years, but their cleaner is repeatedly mispelled as "Prestine Clean", both on the bottle and the directions. Not that I care - if it works, they can call it "Sludge in a Bottle".
I've finished with the first step of the treatment, so the second step will be tomorrow. So far so good, but there are two things that are weird:
1) When you have two products, one called a "rejuvenating oil" and the other called a "cleaner", it seems very strange to use the rejuvenating oil first, followed by the cleaner. With just about every other two-step cleaner/conditioning process, you use the cleaner first, *then* the conditioner. I'm glad I read the directions first!
2) Leatherique has evidently been in the business for close to 40 years, but their cleaner is repeatedly mispelled as "Prestine Clean", both on the bottle and the directions. Not that I care - if it works, they can call it "Sludge in a Bottle".
Yes, you're absolutely right... it seems counter-intuitive to use an oil prior to a cleaner. However, Leatherique employs a completely different leather cleaning/rejuvenating process which explains the odd operational order.
First, other leather cleaners are merely surface cleaners. This is great for ongoing maintenance cleaning... especially if you clean regularly, preventing the dirt and grime from being embedded into the pores of the leather. In fact, frequent (even if brief and light) leather surface cleaning can be your best long-term defense against leather drying and stiffening...
It is the clogging of leather pores which ultimately causes the leather to become stiff and hard. Without pliability, the leather is bound to eventually crack and split as you sit and move around on it. In addition, clogged pores cannot receive conditioners and oils very well- further perpetuating the dryness and hardness. *Frequent surface cleaning can help prevent a great deal of this clogging.
Leatherique is the only system I know of that can physically unclog or purge the leather pores of the embedded dirt and grime. This is why it yields truly amazing results, especially on very tired leather. This is also why the application process is so different from anything else.
The Leatherique Process & How Differs from Others
First, the Leatherique Rejuvenator Oil (RO) is applied to the leather, ideally on a hot day or otherwise warm environment (although out of direct sunlight). It works best in a sauna-like environment. The RO contains a chemical which works its way into the pores by displacing the pores' contents. In other words, it pushes the grime and dirt out and to the top of the leather's surface as it penetrates into the pores, thereby taking the place of the grime and dirt. This takes several hours... we recommend at least 3-4 hours to make it worth your while and up to a couple of days. The longer the better, as it has longer to work. During this time, you need to check on it every hour or so, if possible, to add more RO in the areas which are needing more.
The result of this first step with the RO is this:
- Concentrated conditioning oils in the RO are now nicely placed in the base of the leather's pores, and
- All the dirt and grime, as well as the component in the RO which bonded to the gunk to help displace it, is now sitting on the surface of the leather. Yuck!
It is a nasty, tacky layer that must be removed.Never fear... Leatherique Prestine Clean is here to save the day.
Prestine Clean (PC) is then used to remove all the dirt and grime now sitting on the surface. This is the "elbow-grease" step... more so for leather in poor shape and less so for leather in decent shape. It sometimes takes applying PC over and over again to get it all off.
I personally recommend using a 3-bucket method: fill 3 buckets with warm water and dip your cloth or cloth-covered sponge into each of the 3 buckets one after another after each wipe down of an area. In other words, apply PC to the cloth, wipe/rub the area vigorously, rinse the cloth in bucket #1, then bucket #2, then bucket #3. Otherwise you will just keep dipping back into what will quickly become a bucket of very dirty water.
The Prestine Clean is the only way to remove this nasty, tacky film of dirt and grime from the leather's surface.
Once the surface is no longer tacky, then you're done. And, your leather will have never been so soft and supple, not to mention super clean!
(although your arms will be ready to fall off!) We usually treat our leather to a Leatherique "spa" once a year and use a more convenient and less time consuming process of a regular cleaner-conditioning system the rest of the time.----------
By the way, if you use Leatherique on light colored leather it's particularly fun... although a little gross. My first experience with Leatherique was on black leather that was about 5 years old. It made the leather wonderfully soft! Then I tried it on tan leather that was only about 2 years old and which looked, on the surface, to be fairly clean and fairly soft. As the RO worked it's magic, you could see the grime and dirt come to the surface... in areas on the steering wheel where I usually put my hands, lines on the seat bottoms where legs would be, and a few other spots where one might assume frequent grabbing/touching occurred. Gross!
Still, it was interesting to see the gunk rise to the surface like that. And, of course, the leather was super soft and supple afterwards too.So, that's the long story about leather pores and how Leatherique works.
*BTW, if anyone reports that the Leatherique process left their leather in anything but pristine condition, I've found that it's likely just because they did not fully complete the Prestine Clean process to get all the surface gunk off.
2) Yes, Leatherique's strong suit is NOT marketing nor presentation.
Their bottles are sterile looking and their labels are rather ugly. We had to produce our own version of the instructions because their own version was not as complete as we would like, not to mention it was rife with grammatical errors. That said, they are amazing chemists and leather experts! They are also a very nice family-run company. When asked specifically about the spelling of their "Prestine Clean" they replied that it was an intentional twist on the spelling of "pristine." Hmmm.
Questions? Fire away.
-Heather
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From: Denver, CO
Leatherique RO will "tell" you if you do or not, since it won't absorb at all into imitation leather. But if it turns out to be imitation leather then you're stuck with RO that you don't need.
If the Yukon does have real leather, then Leatherique will do wonders though!
-Heather
4th Gear
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From: Chicago Burbs - North
I have been considering this for a little while now. The steering wheel on the wife's Solara is extremely grungy. So I can just imagine how bad the seats will be. She has an appointment on friday for a dealership "detailing". I know it will not meet very many standards of those in here but it is her last freebie. After that I take over. I figure all of the leather will need to be cleaned.
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