What Is Faded Leather?
Aniline Sofa Faded
Fading leather is a very common type of damage to occur to leather, along with scuffs and scrapes fading is one of the most common to happen.
Leather such as aniline leather, suede and nubuck suffer from this as they have no protective layers applied to help with UV rays.
Depending on the type of leather you have and where it’s made in the world will determine how well this can stand up to UV rays and lights bleaching the surface.
When items are placed on leather and left for some time UV rays and natural light coming through a window can bleach the surface and drain all the dye from the leather leaving un sightly marks on the surface where items have been placed.
Common areas that get affected are the tops of car seats in a convertible vehicle and the backs of chairs and sofas where they are placed against windows.
If this is not addressed the moment it’s seen, the leather will dry out as it has lost all its protective layers and cracking and splits will start to appear. You will need to add nutrition to the leather by applying softening cremes to soften the leather and add goodness back into the leather before a colour restoration process can be carried out.
Some leathers act very differently to others, veg tanned leather that isn’t dyed goes darker with light.
Veg tanned Leather Un Dyed Changing Colour
Aniline leather suffers badly from colour fading due to UV light attacking the dyed leather, this is due to the dyes being water based and translucent, so this means there is no body to the dyes used to dye aniline leather and no protective layer applied over the dyes.
Aniline Leather Chair Restored
Aniline Leather Sofa Faded
Aniline Leather Sofa Fading
Suede and Nubucks suffer from fading due to them being aniline dyed through as can be seen from this picture of this Nubuck leather.
The left side of this nubuck leather hide has stayed a nice deep maroon colour while the right side has faded to a lighter link tone almost.
Nubuck Leather Faded By UV Rays and Light
Colour enhancers can help with aniline leathers to restore the colour back to original.
First you would need to deep clean the surface and then wipe the leather over with an alcohol cleaner and massage in on a sponge the colour enhancer to re dye the leather again.
Colour Enhancer On Aniline Leather