Leather a really good product but I do find that a lot of folks just dont know how to keep it in good condition or how to bring it back to usable condition when it did not have the care is should have had.
Now I have brought leather back to usable condition even when it is as some people say it is dead! We all know it is hide a natural substance in fact it is skin treated with chemicals to stop it detreating and make it not so wantable for things like mould to feed on.
But the most important thing leather must have is internal moisture, without it leather continues to become harder to the point it will become brittle but with moisture it will stay in usable condition for an exceedingly long time indeed.
A good example of this is the leather goods found on the ship the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 after some treatment a pair of shoes was brought back to a usable condition. And one type of leather above all others is Aniline Leather usually tanned with vegetable derived tanning agents and coloured right through the leather rather than having a paint type top coat.
So Aniline leather is very commonly found but its nature is to lose its moisture over time and become hard and brittle the fastest way to make this happen is heat and drying atmosphere.
So what can we do, up to about twenty-five years ago (though some specialist tanners still do this) after a hide was tanned dyed and dried it was treated with a mixture of 50 50 Cod liver oil and Neats-foot oil firstly to lubricate the leather fibres and secondly to trap in the moisture.
And that is the key to it all so to improve leather we must re-establish the moisture level lubricate and slow down the moisture loss from the leather. Now I am sure we have seen those expensive leather treatments for keeping leather items in good condition, but can I add that normal every day hand cream is half the cost and in most cases works far better than those expensive magical leather potions. Well if it is good enough for human hands and promising all sorts of benefits it is good enough for leather.
In the two photographs is a leather jacket I purchased fifty years ago it does show its age now but it has been worn on a regular basis. Now I know it is not the height of sartorial elegance, in the other photograph it is still as soft and as supple as the day it was made and can be rolled up to the size you see all thanks to not so expensive hand cream and getting it wet occasionally.
