What Is Grease On Leather?
Removal / Repair Processes
Head Grease On Pigmented Leather
Where your head lays and your hands are always placed on leather, you will always have grease, in some cases you can’t even see it.
Prior to carrying out any colouring process it’s always best to carry out a grease removal system to ensure it’s safe and will not cause further issues down the line.
Due to this type of finish being a painted finish, it’s extremely hard to break down the grease for its removal so, it may be best to repeat the processes below a few times to ensure it’s fully removed.
For areas that are just lightly soiled
- Clean down first with the Leather Cleaner, use a Brucle brush to agitate, and dry with a clean cloth.
- Then use leather prep to wipe over the surface to help break down the grease and dirt.
- Apply a fine layer of degrease to the affected areas, this can be done with a pallet knife then allow this to dry fully absorbing the grease.
- Then follow this by vacuuming off the powder, if it has grease in the leather this will change colour slightly to a greeny yellow colour.
Keep repeating this process until the powder, when dry, is fully turned white, this ensures all grease has then been removed.
For very heavily soiled leather follow the above A, B, C and D steps, plus 1 and 2 below.
- But this time when you get to step B, use an abrasive pad and put inside the pad some terry towel to soak in the leather prep so you can work on the leather for a great deal longer than normal.
- Then when this has been done, repeat the same process with an abrasive pad but with Alcohol cleaner.
The above steps A, B, C and D want to be done a few times as well as these steps 1 and 2 above
Examples of indications that grease may be on your leather
- On light coloured leathers that have grease on them it can produce a horrible black look this is the leathers fibres almost like a suede type finish has been left / exposed this is because the colour has worn away fully. This requires immediate attention before it’s too late and this starts to generate weak areas causing a hole to appear.
Common areas for this to happen are the seat base areas if you wear shorts a lot or the folds in leather, arm areas, back areas where your head would rest.
- Another sign is where grease has affected the leather it will become sticky, tacky, dull and sometimes very dark patches appear almost like the leather is wet.
Aniline Leather With Head Grease
A
Aniline leather can be very susceptible to head grease as aniline leather is a very absorbent leather allowing grease and stains to get into the leather due to it being natural and its open pores.
With aniline leather you will have to deep clean the full sofa to try to remove the head grease, soak the area with an aniline leather cleaner and rub this together with your hands so that the cleaner gets deep into the leather pores, and then vacuum off with a soft attachment on the vacuum to withdraw the head grease, with aniline you may find the leather goes very slightly darker when cleaned this is very natural.
Allow the aniline leather item to naturally dry out and then apply some aniline protector spray to the surface to help avoid this happening again.
Head Grease On Aniline
Grease On Aniline