What Are Scrubber Pads?
Scrubber pads are made up of Microfibre and Nylon with a foam insert and are approximately 1 inch thick by 5 inches and 3 inches in size. These scrubber pads come in a variety of colours and sizes can be different also, the main colours they come in are white nylon which is a thermo plastic and microfibre which is split conjugated fibres of polyester and polyamide.
Obviously, it’s the impact on the environment and the leather we have to worry about, these items damage leather as does microfibres due to the plastic particles they contain.
Microfibre cloths are very bad for leather as they cause micro scaring and scratches, if people knew and understood them fully they would never use them for cars paintwork either due to the micro plastic particles they can contain, which has a huge damaging impact on our environment.
Scrubber pads have been around for some time now, but people are starting to think they are a new invention in around 2019 / 2020 but far from it, these have been used in kitchens around the world for some years now.
Due to the nylon side this provides a deep cleaning pad on hard surfaces, and should NEVER be used on leather, as can be seen from this video demonstration that was carried out on a BMW car seat.
Not only does this cause micro scaring all over the leather, that to the eye can’t be seen, until a later date when damage starts to appear, and the only response people can provide is the coating is breaking down, that’s correct it is. This is due to the use of a scrubber pad. Another pad that does the exact same amount of damage is a magic eraser / magic sponge, again they cause damage that can’t be seen to the eye, but it’s only down the line that damage starts to appear and this gets put down to general wear an tear when in fact it’s the magic eraser that’s caused the damage as does the scrubber pad.
Natural brushes are far safer and recommended by tanneries as the preferred method for cleaning leather as they are safe to use, it’s suggested that leather should be cleaned with a natural water based leather cleaner and nothing like an APC as an APC will strip the colour and seriously damage the leather.