How to clean and care for aniline leather?

Unity

I'm hoping that someone here might have an idea on how to clean and care for aniline leather. This is leather without a coloured coating sprayed on, although the hide itself is dyed.

I bought two of these sofas earlier this year, http://www.dfs.co.uk/sofas/leather/trenton/159/2991/0 including cleaning and treatment wipes from DFS. Unfortunately the wipes don't have any details as to what they contain and once they run out I am obviously not wanting to pay £25 for another set :rolleyes:.

I've tried searching the Net - but it seems to be just companies wanting to sell their own make of cleaning kit and I am sure there must be something 'Old Style' I can use.

Pink.

Hi Unity,

Is this thread any use?

How can i clean a leather suite / sofa

Pink

Unity

Pink-winged wrote: »

Hi Unity,

Is this thread any use?

How can i clean a leather suite / sofa

Pink

Thanks for this Pink-winged. I used to use baby-wipes etc. on my old leather suite and still do on my cream leather sofa, but they were coated leather and from what I've read saddle-soap is also a definite 'no-no' on aniline leather. I also looked when I was in Lakeland, but the stuff they sell also says specifically "Don't use on aniline leather" so that's the reason I'm stuck.

It's the sort of leather - where if something got spilled on it, it would soak in - rather than run off. When we first got it in June, I used quite a few of the wipes that came with it - because it used to look dry and a little dusty (possibly from being stored) but it's settled down since then and is developing a patina as it should.

Now that there's just the two of us at home, we thought we'd get something we really liked since there are no longer any children to climb on it/spill stuff etc. so I want to do my best to keep it looking good.

Pink.

I had a look on google for you and there is some good advice if you can sift out the advertisments. These are a couple of pages I found:

Aniline leather

Aniline leather starting to dry out

Pink

Pipkin

Hi

We have an analine leather sofa that we bought a good few years ago from HALO.

It came with a little tag which said it did not need to be cleaned with anything other than a lightly damp cloth and contrary to popular opinion the leather did not need to be fed (but could be if desired no more than twice a year)..however it also came with a leather cleaning and protection kit!

I have cleaned it once using the special cleaner and also used the nourishing cream on it (both from leathermaster uk) and neither did any harm to the sofa.

I think in future I would just use the damp cloth to clean it (really you just need to keep the dust at bay as this is what damages it) and use the cream sparingly..other than that my sofa still looks as good as it did when I got it with not much effort.

Unity

Thanks to both of you so very much:T:T:T. I feel a lot more confident about doing this now. Damp cloth at the ready . I will use the rest of the cleaning and feeding kit and then get some of the Leathermaster nourishing cream for a half yearly spruce up.