Leather care

Top-grain leather is not a delicate material. It is a hard-wearing one that happens to show its history.

That is the part most people get wrong. A new leather bag looks its worst on day one. It is stiff, it is uniformly dark, and it has no character at all. Everything that happens from there – the softening, the shine on the handles, the slight lightening where it folds – is the material doing what it was chosen to do.

So the honest advice is: use it. What follows is the small amount of maintenance that keeps it going for fifteen years rather than five.

Every few weeks

Wipe it with a dry cloth, or one barely damp. That is genuinely most of it. Dust and grit are more abrasive than they look, and getting them off the surface does more good than any product.

Empty it out occasionally. Crumbs and dried milk at the bottom of a bag do more damage over a year than a rain shower does in an afternoon.

Two or three times a year

A leather balm or conditioner, worked in with a soft cloth and left to absorb. This replaces the natural oils that heat and time draw out, and it is what stops leather drying and cracking in year eight.

Test on the base first. Every leather takes conditioner slightly differently and the underside is where nobody looks. Use very little – far less than you think. Leather cannot absorb what you pile onto it, and the excess sits on the surface and attracts dust.

Any decent neutral leather balm will do. You do not need a branded one and we do not sell one.

When it gets wet

Let it dry on its own, at room temperature, away from radiators, hairdryers and direct sun. Heat is what actually damages leather – water mostly just marks it, and the marks fade.

Stuff it loosely with a tea towel or plain paper while it dries so it keeps its shape. Not newspaper, which transfers ink.

A soaked bag may dry slightly stiffer than it was. A conditioner once it is fully dry brings it back.

Milk, food and the rest of it

The lining is waterproof and wipes clean. That is what it is there for, and it is why the messiest things in the bag are the things to worry least about.

On the outside leather, blot rather than rub, and use a barely damp cloth. Avoid household cleaners, wipes with alcohol in them and anything labelled antibacterial – they strip the finish and leave a pale patch that does not recover.

Scratches

Most surface scratches on top-grain leather are not cuts. They are the surface displaced, and they buff out. Run a clean fingertip over the mark, or a soft cloth with a little warmth from friction, and watch it close up.

Deeper marks stay. They also stop looking like damage after about a month, once the rest of the bag has caught up with them.

Storing it

If a bag is going away for a season, stuff it loosely so it holds its shape and keep it somewhere dry and out of direct light. A cotton dust bag or a pillowcase is ideal. Not a plastic bag – leather needs to breathe, and plastic traps moisture against it, which is how mould starts.

What we mean by patina

Patina is the word for what happens when leather is used well. The colour deepens unevenly. The corners lighten. The handles darken and take on a shine from the oils in your hands. The whole thing softens and starts to hang differently.

None of it is damage, and none of it can be bought new. It is the reason we chose leather over the coated fabrics most changing bags are made from – those look identical in year one and tired in year three, and there is nothing you can do about it.

The first mark is the one that worries people. It is also the one that starts the process.

If something goes wrong

Stitching, hardware, a zip that stops running properly – tell us. We would rather fix it than have you live with it, and we would rather know than not.

Email enquiries@josalis.com with a photograph and we will tell you what we can do.