What Are Leather Wipes?
Over 11 billion are produced each year, it takes 100 years for a wipe to degrade in landfill, causing major issues to rivers, drains and our marine life.
They are an easy to use wipe with chemicals injected into them along with a leather cleaner which is less than a few percent leather cleaner content, mostly all are other chemicals, wetting agents, silicones and in some cases alcohols.
Then you have the issues of the impact on the environment from the wipes as they won’t break down, causing major issues for drains, landfill, and marine life.
90% of wipes manufactured contain some plastic in the manufacturing process, along with some of the fragrances used which are linked cancer, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity and more.
Then you have the other side of the leather wipes using conventional cottons, which are linked to pesticides and harming the environment.
Leather wipes don’t clean leather correctly to begin with, as it’s the dirt that’s in the grain that causes damage the protective surface coatings, causing this to breakdown with friction movement, wipes just skate over the surface leaving all the bad parts behind causing long term damage.
As well as that, there is the cost elements, the average bottle of leather cleaner compared to leather wipes, it’s staggering the amount of leather wipes you would have to buy to equal the amount in a bottle.
It would be around £600 compared to around £15 for a bottle of leather cleaner, that’s the difference in cleaning products contained within the wipes compared to buying a bottle of cleaner. You are certainly being ripped off with them.
Leather Wipes – Leather Cleaner
Almost all wipes contain alcohol, alcohol is a killer for leather, on the other hand some companies produce a mild leather cleaner and a strong leather cleaner, sometimes these strong leather cleaners contain alcohol products, these strip the clear coat and break down the paint causing more damage, this is the same for leather wipes, the content is not a strong as a strong leather cleaner, so is slower to break down the clear coat lacquer on the surface.
A strong leather cleaner can break down a clear coat in a short period, so ensure you understand the contents of your cleaners.
You can get a strong leather cleaner without the need of alkalines and alcohols, it’s always best to ask before you buy.
So before using wipes of any form make sure you understand them and think about the environment and the impact this has on our marine life, not only that when water companies fight to clear drains with costs running into £100 million to do so, this cost has to be recovered somehow, yep that’s right higher water bills that we all complain about.