Cleaning Leather Furniture

Leather furniture, like I said before is fairly popular because, lets face it, it looks great. But there is no doubt of the fact that it is tough work to look after and a maintenance hazard. Leather furniture gets spoiled at the drop of a hat and requires way too much attention. This fact will particularly irk you when you try cleaning it. There's a host of things you can't use because you don't know how the leather will react to it! So when cleaning leather furniture, you need to be pretty careful with how you clean it and what you use, to clean it.

Leather Cleaning at Home

Now as you know, your leather furniture is an expensive bit of furniture. So if you're not sure about your little experiment with cleaning leather furniture, I suggest that you simply drop the cleaning agents and the like and pick up the phone instead and ring up the professionals. They know leather. They know how to clean it. And the chances of the leather furniture coming back clean and more importantly in one piece are fairly high. So while this article is just giving a simple guidance or home remedies, I would still advice you to get this work done from the professionals. If you absolutely refuse to, here's how to clean leather furniture.

Stuff You Need

• Vacuum cleaner with a soft brush
• Mild body soap
• Distilled Water
• Soft rags
• Leather conditioner

Once you have assimilated this arsenal of cleansers, let's start the process of cleaning.

• First clear the dust on the surface of your leather furniture with the vacuum cleaner. Make sure that the speed of the cleaner is set on low and you use the soft brush. Any extra bit of work and the leather will scratch. Gently sweep up the leather furniture before going on to cleaning it.
• Now take some of the soap on one of the rags and try gently rubbing it on a less visible part of the sofa. This is a test. Usually the leather won't react badly, but in case it does, you'd rather have it in a less obvious area rather than bang in the center of the sofa! If there is no reaction, and it is very unlikely that there will be any, move on to the next step.
• Now with the rag of cloth with vinegar on it, dab the entire sofa well. Do not rub too hard because, again, leather furniture is a pretty fragile substance. Dab the whole furniture softly and then set the soapy rag aside.
• Take a second cloth rag and dip it in distilled water. I specifically insist on distilled water, because it has no chemicals in it whatsoever. Chemicals in tap water or treated water might spoil the sofa. So dip the rag in distilled water and softly wipe the surface.
• Take a third cloth rag and with it, wipe the sofa dry. No need to dip this one anywhere!
• Now apply a leather furniture conditioner, which you have procured presumably from your leather furniture dealer, after having specified your type of furniture, on your furniture. This leather conditioner does the important job of protecting leather furniture from daily wear and tear.

Best Way to Clean Leather Furniture Stains

Now, if your leather is stained, you'll obviously feel the need for a slightly stronger cleaner. Often the leather is subject to stains of all sorts and there is a need to clean it up as soon as possible. So here's a little bit to do it naturally.

Stuff You Need

• 1 part vinegar
• 2 parts linseed oil
• Soft rags

What you need to do for cleaning leather furniture with vinegar is simply what is given in the above paragraph. Dip the rags into the mix of linseed oil and vinegar and then gently rub in a circular motion over the stain. Now dry and condition and your stain will be gone.

It is a tough job indeed and you could even explore the option of steam cleaning. So if you're looking for doing it at home, I suggest you try one of the above methods . Otherwise, send the sofa to the professional leather sofa cleaners!