Help - What am I doing wrong or is my product not good enough - Leather cleaning interior

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TheMidnightNarwhal

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Last week end I cleaned my friend's interior to practise myself and well, the results on the leather seats were pretty dissapointing.

I used lexol leather cleaner and with a soft bristles brush to agitate the cleaner then wipe off. I put some conditionner after.

Here are the pictures before
Here are the pictures after

As you can see, it's pretty bad. So I'm not sure if it's because of the product itself or my technique or what here. Hopefully anyone can help out and recommend me on what to do.
 
TheMidnightNarwhal said:
Last week end I cleaned my friend's interior to practise myself and well, the results on the leather seats were pretty dissapointing.

I used lexol leather cleaner and with a soft bristles brush to agitate the cleaner then wipe off. I put some conditionner after.

Here are the pictures before
Here are the pictures after

As you can see, it's pretty bad. So I'm not sure if it's because of the product itself or my technique or what here. Hopefully anyone can help out and recommend me on what to do.
Click to expand...

What year car is it, and how many miles? You can't take leather that has been neglected for 10-15 years and expect them to look like new. Are the seats in the back solid brown?

I've never used Lexol. I've only worked on old leather one time, it was almost 20 years, I got it looking cleaner but the cracking and a lot of the dirt in the cracks didn't come out. It's my understanding that Leatherique is the best thing for old neglected leather, which is what that looks like to me.
 
That leather looks pretty dirty/beat up. You may need to try a more aggressive cleaner and see if that helps. Possibly even a brush attachment on one of your polishers. Steam, if you have a steamer, could also be beneficial here IMO.

Just remember: always do an area that is inconspicuous to check to see if the product/method you use is color fast--doesn't strip the dye from the leather.

Hope this helps you, and keep us posted!
 
With really dirty leather and other surfaces you need to go over them multible times. The use of a more effective product and method holds down the number of times. When cleaning those neglected ones an APC and spray on a magic eraser and scrub the leather with. Work in small sections when doing heavy cleaning is prefered so the chemicals don't dry up on you. And follow up with mf towel that is a little more than damp or a cleaner that don't need to be rinsed off. And as mentioned above test spot to an inconspicuous place first. Then if some dirt is left it's a defective work to find out what kind of dirt it is and find a cleaner that desolves just that kind of dirt. It's important to evaluate how much the leather is weared if the leather coating is weared off or not.

Ultima Interior Schampo Gel is a great product and also very safe. Use as a first step and move up in aggressiveness if it's not gets cleaned enough. Then the Ultima Interior Guard Plus is an awesome protection to leather after it's cleaned. And is easy for the customer to maintain till it's time for a new detailing.

Ultima Interior Shampoo Gel, interior cleaner, upholstery cleaner

Ultima Interior Guard Plus 4 oz., interior protectant, rubber & vinyl protectant, rubber dressing

Then you have the Sonax Leather Foam and combined with the their Dirt Eraser which is the same as a magic eraser sponge. And don't worry about the review where it's says they don't hold up. The magic eraser sponges wears down quite fast and is how they works. Sonax has an Alcantra cleaner too which is great. Alcantra is a very sensitive surface and you could ruin it when you approach it the normal ways. It's not so common with alcantra but when you stumble on them it's good to know what you dealing with.

SONAX Leather Foam Leather Cleaner & Conditioner, Sonax leather cleaner conditioner, sonax leather care

SONAX Dirt Eraser

SONAX Upholstery and Alcantara Cleaner, best alcantara cleaner

https://www.autogeek.net/best-leather-brush-for-auto.html
 
Ultima is my go to...

See pics.
 
I started using Griot's Scent Restoring Leather Cleaner. It has NO leather scent to it ( a bit misleading), more of a citrus, but it does a wonderful job of cleaning light colored leathers!
Mike
 
Lexol is about as weak of a leather cleaner as you can find, not surprised it couldn’t get the job done + that leather is super trashed.

Best bet would’ve been to use a diluted APC with a steamer.
 
TMQ said:
Ultima is my go to...

See pics.
Click to expand...

Hey Mr. Tommy. What kind of brush are you using? The first and third pictures show what looks like the Sonax brush. I just ordered the Ultima Interior Gel and I want a good brush to go with it. The cheaper vinyl and leather scrub brush seems a bit too harsh.
 
UncleDavy said:
Hey Mr. Tommy. What kind of brush are you using? The first and third pictures show what looks like the Sonax brush. I just ordered the Ultima Interior Gel and I want a good brush to go with it. The cheaper vinyl and leather scrub brush seems a bit too harsh.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the Sonax brush. It helps a lot for certain areas.

Best thing was the white cotton towel!!!

Spray on, rub it in with the towel and then use another, clean towel and wipe off with steady pressure in one direction--one wipe. Flip towel and give it another "one direction" wipe.

None of that rubbing back and forth deals. You want to lift and remove dirt---not to rub in dirt. Make sense?

Similar to doing a rinse-less wash---steady one direction wipe and rolling towel up as you move across the panel.

Tom
 
Better technique and product may have helped a little, but unless you had a bottle of the year 2010, probably not that much of a difference.
 
Sizzle Chest said:
That leather looks pretty dirty/beat up. You may need to try a more aggressive cleaner and see if that helps. Possibly even a brush attachment on one of your polishers. Steam, if you have a steamer, could also be beneficial here IMO.

Just remember: always do an area that is inconspicuous to check to see if the product/method you use is color fast--doesn't strip the dye from the leather.

Hope this helps you, and keep us posted!
Click to expand...

What would be a more aggresive cleaner? All I really have is Meguiar's upholstery cleaner and some Sonax multistar APC.

Also I know htis might seem like a dumb question but testing for inconspicuous area... where would that be for a seat. Like at the same time you wanna see how well it's going to clean so it will be on a dirty surface? If I clean the side bottom of the seat it won't be super dirty uh?
 
SWETM said:
With really dirty leather and other surfaces you need to go over them multible times. The use of a more effective product and method holds down the number of times. When cleaning those neglected ones an APC and spray on a magic eraser and scrub the leather with. Work in small sections when doing heavy cleaning is prefered so the chemicals don't dry up on you. And follow up with mf towel that is a little more than damp or a cleaner that don't need to be rinsed off. And as mentioned above test spot to an inconspicuous place first. Then if some dirt is left it's a defective work to find out what kind of dirt it is and find a cleaner that desolves just that kind of dirt. It's important to evaluate how much the leather is weared if the leather coating is weared off or not.

Ultima Interior Schampo Gel is a great product and also very safe. Use as a first step and move up in aggressiveness if it's not gets cleaned enough. Then the Ultima Interior Guard Plus is an awesome protection to leather after it's cleaned. And is easy for the customer to maintain till it's time for a new detailing.

Ultima Interior Shampoo Gel, interior cleaner, upholstery cleaner

Ultima Interior Guard Plus 4 oz., interior protectant, rubber & vinyl protectant, rubber dressing

Then you have the Sonax Leather Foam and combined with the their Dirt Eraser which is the same as a magic eraser sponge. And don't worry about the review where it's says they don't hold up. The magic eraser sponges wears down quite fast and is how they works. Sonax has an Alcantra cleaner too which is great. Alcantra is a very sensitive surface and you could ruin it when you approach it the normal ways. It's not so common with alcantra but when you stumble on them it's good to know what you dealing with.

SONAX Leather Foam Leather Cleaner & Conditioner, Sonax leather cleaner conditioner, sonax leather care

SONAX Dirt Eraser

SONAX Upholstery and Alcantara Cleaner, best alcantara cleaner

https://www.autogeek.net/best-leather-brush-for-auto.html
Click to expand...

I am a huge Sonax fanboy I guess I will get that leather foam cleaner and their brush. And for the upholstrery/alcantara cleaner at it's price point, I guess it's really more of a alcantara cleaner and maybe use their APC for upholstery cleaner and stains?
 
TheMidnightNarwhal said:
What would be a more aggresive cleaner? All I really have is Meguiar's upholstery cleaner and some Sonax multistar APC.

Also I know htis might seem like a dumb question but testing for inconspicuous area... where would that be for a seat. Like at the same time you wanna see how well it's going to clean so it will be on a dirty surface? If I clean the side bottom of the seat it won't be super dirty uh?
Click to expand...

I’m using the McKee’s 37 leather shampoo. It’s been strong enough with the round brush fir what I’ve encountered.

McKee's 37 Leather Shampoo 70/30



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
TheMidnightNarwhal said:
I am a huge Sonax fanboy I guess I will get that leather foam cleaner and their brush. And for the upholstrery/alcantara cleaner at it's price point, I guess it's really more of a alcantara cleaner and maybe use their APC for upholstery cleaner and stains?
Click to expand...

Absolutely I would do that too with the their APC. Use the alcantra cleaner on alcantra and sensitive upholstry like the interior roof upholstry or other suede like upholstry textile. The APC is not for use on leather and clear plastic like headlights and the meters in the car.
 
D181 and a horsehair brush or yellow leather scrubber is the way to go IMO.
 
You might want to try Leather Honey. I've found that it rehydrates and "heals" old, dried out, leather. I cleaned with Lexol Cleaner, applied leather stain (like shoe polish) and used the Leather Honey as directed. Changed my 24 year old Corvette seats to like brand new.
 
I ordered the Sonax leather and some more brushes and the Sonax leather brush to. I will report the results.
 
Sonax leather foam is a top quality product, but I’m not certain where it falls in the ‘strength’ range. I forgot to mention gyeon leather cleaner as another great option.


Sent from my iPhone using Autogeekonline mobile app
 
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