Auto Leather Conditioner:
Learn how to keep it super simple!

Auto leather conditioner is a subject full of bad information repeated by many misinformed people.

Just like every other topic of cosmetic car care, we as consumers have been kept in the dark.

Advances in leather tanning processes and manufacturing have changed dramatically over the years.

But the industry is far more dedicated to selling you more products based on outdated information about the leather in your car, than it is in educating you about the advances of automotive leather.

"Darren, I don't want to become an expert on cleaning and conditioning my car leather, I just want a simple solution!"

Chemical Guy's Car Leather Kit on Amazon

• One kit for all your car leather needs

This kit is your all-in-one source to do everything needed to clean and condition the leather in your auto.

• Brand new car leather
• Not-so-new car leather

My Tips on Auto Leather

Let me summarize my opinions and experience into this bullet-point list in order to simplify it for you:

• Virtually all car leathers used today are finished with a clear protective coating that is applied for protection and durability of the leather. 
  
• This means you will actually be cleaning, treating, or conditioning a clear protective layer that is made up of different types of resins, polymers, synthetic this and synthetic that, call it whatever works for you....point is that you are not dealing with the actual leather, but the clear protective layer.
  
• Keeping your car leather clean is the most important and critical part to the health and beauty of your car leather. I have customer's cars (as well as my own) that I have never used any form of conditioner on the leather. What I have done is kept the leather clean consistently over the life of the car, and the leather looks virtually new after over 10 years of daily use.
• With all that said, I still believe that auto leather conditioners can still play a role in the health and beauty of your car's leather interiors. It mostly depends on you and how you like the appearance of your car leather to look, as well as how you like it to feel.
  
• Most auto leather conditioners will create some degree of additional sheen or shine to the material. (maybe you like this, maybe you don't)
• Any auto leather conditioner will also change the way the leather feels regardless of whether you think the conditioner is actually penetrating into the material or not. (Like everything else in the world, no two leather conditioners are created equal and each product will create its own unique feel to your car leather when applied)

Stop Conditioning Dirty Car Leather

Experience has taught me how often people much like yourself race to find the best car leather conditioner, and then proceed to apply a car leather conditioner directly over a dirty seat at worst, or a partially clean leather seat at best.

Far too many people underestimate how important it is to clean your leather car seats before you apply your choice as the best leather car seat conditioner.

Cleaning Auto Leather

Allow me to map out the steps you will follow to clean and condition your car leather:

• Pre-vacuum your leather seats to remove any dry/loose debris from the cracks (once you introduce liquid to the equation, this dry debris becomes a bigger mess, so pre-vacuum)
• Use the leather cleaner form the kit above and spray onto a small section of your leather seating and scrub with the supplied brush.
• Mop up the dirty mess with one of the supplied microfiber cloths.
• Check your results and either repeat if needed, or move forward until you have cleaned the entire seating surface.
• It is always best to use light, repeated applications until you have achieved desired results rather than over-saturating the area and thinking you will be capable of cleaning your auto leather in a single application (If your car leather is dirty enough, you can expect to clean each section 2-5 times in order to remove all the dirt)

Conditioning Auto Leather

Once you have achieved desired results of cleaning your car leather, you can then move to the conditioning:

• You do NOT need to rinse the leather after you have cleaned the leather.
• Apply the leather conditioner to the application pad and then work this into the leather surfaces working from section to section, until the entire seat has been completed.
• Use a separate and dry microfiber cloth to "buff" the seating surface to create a uniform appearance and remove any excess leather conditioner.
• If you cannot create a uniform appearance to the leather, apply additional leather conditioner and finesses this until you have a uniform appearance.

How Often Should You Clean and Condition Car Leather

As often as needed!

Which then of course leads to: "How do I know?"

Every situation is unique just as every section of your auto leather within your car is unique in that each section will get "used" at different rates.

You may need to clean and condition the drivers seat every month based on the usage. You may also be the only person that every sits in your car while the next person reading this page may have a family that is riding in their car on the regular.

Use the following as guidelines in deciding how frequently you want to do this:

• I know for certain that cleaning your car leather and keeping it clean IS the most important part.
• This means if you are short on time, I would recommend you perform a simple wipe down of your car leather with some of the leather cleaner spritzed onto the microfiber cloth (this is super simple and can be done very quickly -this also means that if you do this regularly,  the dirt is never allowed to build up)
• Most people are fixated on the auto leather conditioner and therefore will skip the cleaning part (the more important step) and apply leather conditioner over dirty leather. (This only creates a problem long term)
• Only you can determine your standards of "clean and conditioned" - which means you will independently arrive at the conclusion to this question of "How often?" -there is no hard rule.

Auto leather Conditioner Summary

Now that you know a super simple way to clean and condition your auto leather!

I you want to follow my professional schedule, you can use the following schedule I use for my personal cars as well as my customers cars: 

• Clean car leather once a month: This can literally only take a few moments if done regularly.  A micro-fiber cloth with a few sprays of leather cleaner and a quick wipe down.
  
• Use the leather conditioner after any cleaning as often as you want (this means you do not have to apply a new application of dressing each time you clean your leather -as I stated earlier, the most important thing is to keep your car leather clean. 

Best of luck to you!

Sincerely,

Darren Priest