Why should I clean my leather seats?
To many car owners, having leather seats is a statement piece. A sign that you’re driving in luxury or that you like being comfortable and you make that your highest priority. Either way, you value the leather seats in your car and you want them around for the long-haul.
Unfortunately, given the type of material that leather is, you need to take extra precaution in treating it with the care that it deserves.
It's natural that over time your leather seats will show signs of wear and tear which comes from the accumulation of dirt and other debris. However, if it's not cleaned early and often then your leather seats can start to develop cracks. This is especially detrimental since cleaning becomes much harder since all sorts of liquids can seep through the cracks, making your leather seats develop odors that can be hard to get rid of and it’ll look even worse.
As bad as this sounds, we have the expertise necessary to properly care for and restore your leather seats.
So now that you understand why you need to clean your leather seats, we’ll break down our own process for how we do so.
Even before we start the leather cleaning process, we make sure to consult with you in order to refer to your car manual. Occasionally, they’ll offer suggestions for which brands to use when cleaning the type of leather in your car. If nothing is mentioned, then we’ll use an eco-friendly leather cleaner.
The first thing we do is that we vacuum your leather seats for dirt, dust, and any other debris before we even start cleaning. We have to do this first because these particles are so fine that if they get too embedded in your leather seats it’ll ruin the texture. When we’re vacuuming leather, we always attach a brush to our vacuum cleaner so we don’t accidentally scratch your seats. Also we always use a crevice tool to get between those hard-to-reach areas such as the creases between your leather seats.
Next, we tackle the grime that’s on your leather seats. Leather is a sensitive material and using any sort of household-based cleaner like bleach will cause the leather to dry out and crack. Instead, we clean your leather seats using an eco-friendly leather cleaner on a microfiber towel in which we gently scrub them down. During this process, we make sure not to use too much of our cleaner since it’ll risk the leather getting soaked which causes irreversible staining.
Occasionally some dirt will still appear even after we clean your leather seats which is fine. In this case, we’ll use a soft brush and spray our eco-friendly leather cleaner on it. Then we’ll gently scub your leather seats very gently and by doing so dirt will rise to the top of the seats. Once it comes up, we’ll clean the seats off again with another microfiber towel. If your leather seats happen to be perforated, then we don’t scrub them since the cleanser will soak into the seats and foster an environment for mold to grow. If there’s an excessive amount of dirt and grime on your leather seats, we simply repeat the scrubbing process a second time.
Lastly, we use a leather conditioner after your seats have been cleaned and dried. Dry conditions cause leather to lose some of its oils and left unchecked it’ll lead to cracking. A leather conditioner helps to replenish the lost oils and will keep your leather supple and healthy. We always use a natural leather conditioner versus a synthetic leather conditioner since it’ll cause the leather to look waxy and lose its shine.
With our natural leather conditioner, we use another microfiber towel and dampen it with the conditioner to gently rub your leather seats with the towel to properly apply the conditioner. After we finish the conditioning process, your leather seats need to stay out of the sun for at least an hour so the conditioner can thoroughly sit into your seats. It’s imperative that nothing comes into contact with your leather seats during this time, otherwise the conditioning process will be ruined.
