subject: Car Leather Protector – A Good Protector Will Prolong The Life Of Car Leather [print this page] Car Leather Protector A Good Protector Will Prolong The Life Of Car Leather
Car leather is subject to the most wildly fluctuating temperatures changes from the freezing cold in winter to the blistering heat in the summer. Even human skin would have difficulty surviving in such a hostile environment. Here's how to protect your car leather from wearing out prematurely.
Over time, soiling, grime, body sweat and skin oils will come in contact with your leather. And being acidic, these will slowly etch into the finish, eventually breaking it down, causing discolouration, premature wear and staining.
Furthermore, the continuous sliding in and out across the seats causes friction and abrasion to take its toll in the form of wear and tear.
And if left untreated, leather will start to show cracks, go hard and stiff, shrink and even split along the stitching.
In order to prevent this from happening, or at least, slow it down, using a good quality leather protector can go a long way to improve the life of your leather and keep it from premature aging and deterioration.
Not only does a good protector help prolong the life of your leather but it also makes it easier to remove other marks such as newspaper stains, staining from jeans , pen marks and other things which are normally difficult to remove.
A good quality leather protector should be part of the leather maintenance programme for your car.
Now, this brings me to a very important point: a protector is not a cleaner and should not be used as such. For cleaning, a good quality leather cleaner should be used.
Combination Cleaner/Protectors Should Be Avoided
There are many products on the market claiming to be an all-in-one' cleaner and conditioner but independent leather testing authorities
have shown that these combination type products can be harmful to leather.
The reason being, these products simply smear the contamination over the leather surface, and mix the soiling, body oils and sweat in with the chemical protectant, which in turn, seals the acidic contamination onto the leather surface, thus speeding up deterioration.
That said, before applying a leather protector, make sure the leather has been thoroughly cleaned.
The Qualities Of A Good Leather Protector
A good leather protector is made up of a combination of tanners waxes and oils and when applied to the leather in your car, forms an invisible, sacrificial barrier over the surface. This, in effect, is an invisible film which is designed to keep day to day contamination
and soiling suspended in the wax, rather than allow the bad stuff to attach itself to the surface of your leather.
As you can imagine, if the contamination is no longer touching the leather surface, then wear and tear is reduced to an absolute minimum.
Finally, to prolong the life of the leather in your car, a good quality protector will definitely help to keep your leather looking good for longer, giving you many more years of enjoyment.
