Advice needed on cleaning soiled leather jacket

[DanielCoffey]

I have been asked to clean a cheap leather jacket for a friend and I need a bit of advice on how to approach the task...

The jacket is a very cheap light-weight one made in Pakistan about twenty-odd years ago for the equivalent in todays money of £90. I suspect it is sheep/lamb leather, is black, is lined in a synthetic printed fabric and has a few weak areas in the stitching around the pockets. There are light grey mildew marks almost all over it and it has the "charity shop old leather" smell. The poppers are lightly corroded and have the greeny-grey residue on most of them from age and damp. The lining is largely intact.

If it was a better quality jacket, I would not hesitate to break out the Obenauf Leather Cleaner that I have, treat it with that panel by panel, let it dry then go to work with the Obenauf Leather Protector but I was wondering...

Given the state of the jacket and the smell, what would be the consequences of hanging it in the shower, soaking it and rubbing it down then letting it drip-dry on a broad hangar? It would still get the LP when it was dry of course. How about a low-agitation, cold machine wash with a little detergent?

Thoughts please?

 

[Peacoat]

If you wash it or even get it soaked, it may shrink beyond redemption. There is a thread in the Outerwear section that gives some very good ideas on getting rid of mildew on a leather jacket. I think most of the suggestions were concerned with heavy leather jackets, but some of the ideas may help you.

If you aren't able to find the thread, I think I would go the leather cleaner route and stay away from the water treatment. I have a Schott leather motorcycle jacket that got wet in the rain once. Even though a medium heavy leather, it shrank a bit, especially in the arms. Still wearable, but the arms are about 1/2 inch shorter than they were before.

 

[captaincaveman1]

Well sounds like its a throw-away jacket. And if you can't get rid of the bad smell and mildew stains, you probably won't wear it, right? So, at the risk of shrinking it, I'd say throw it in the wash on gentle cycle with cold water and woolite. Don't let it hang dry - dry it as you would a wool sweater, i.e. draped over a flat surface like a screen. That should remove most of the green rust stains on the metal bits and address the odor partway. For the final step, after fully dry hang it outside in direct sunlight for a few hours. Expose both front and back sides to those wonderful microbe-killing UV rays.

The steps above worked for a mildewy goatskin bomber I picked up cheap on ebay. Out of the box, I couldn't even wear the damn thing so I figured, what's the risk? I've been wearing that jacket every day since the weather turned cooler here.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Hand wash it with detergent. You've got nothing to lose. Do it in cold water. By the way, I have washed 9 leather jackets in recent times and I have NEVER experienced shrinkage.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Thanks for the advice, folks. I managed to find the old thread about washing jackets and decided to just give it a go and see.

I checked all pockets (found the obligatory forgotten tissue), turned it inside out and zipped it up and put it in my front-loader on the Woollens cycle at 20 degrees with a hand-wash detergent and crossed my fingers. It worked fine. The water was a totally disgusting colour of course!

When it came out of the machine, the smell had abated somewhat - not gone, just lessened which was a relief. I am currently drying it flat on a rack and will rotate and turn it inside out as required to dry then it will get some Obenaufs.

As I mentioned, it isn't my jacket and in a charity shop I would have walked right past it - the smell, the extremely thin leather, the holes in the liner in a pocket, the failed stitching under a pocket and missing teeth at the bottom of the plastic zipper - but the owner still wants it so I figured I would help. At least he now will have a *clean* tatty jacket rather then something completely unwearable.

Once again, thanks for the advice.

 

[captaincaveman1]

Don't forget that final step - hanging out in full sun. Solar radiation is superb at killing off remaining odor-producing microbes.