I recently bought a used leather chair. It needed cleaned where there were a few stains on the leather. Nothing serious, just a few marks and a spill I needed to clean off the leather. But I didn’t have any leather cleaner in my cleaning supplies so I set out to find a homemade leather cleaner.

As you may know, I think vinegar is an amazing fix-all product. I checked and several home remedies for leather cleaning and stain removal call for using vinegar. Was I surprised, no not at all. In fact, I figured if I didn’t find this suggestion about using vinegar to clean the leather chair, I was going to try it anyway.

Homemade Leather Cleaning and Conditioning

Materials Needed:
White vinegar
Water
Clean soft rag or towel
Olive Oil

To clean a stain or spill off leather, dribble a bit of vinegar on a clean towel. Add a bit of water to moisten the towel where you dribbled the vinegar.

Rub the moistened towel over the leather and apply a gentle friction over any spills to remove the stain. Use another area of the towel to clean off the spot and apply more vinegar and water to the towel as needed to clean the leather. Keep turning the towel to a clean area as you work over the leather.

Once you have your leather clean, you will want to condition it. Leather dries out and by conditioning it, you soften the leather and give it a great new look. Olive oil is a wonderful product for conditioning your leather items. Some people say you can use other types of cooking oil but olive oil is a better choice in my opinion.

To condition my leather chair, I used a clean towel and dribbled a bit of olive oil on the towel. Start out by using a small amount on the rag and rub it all over the leather. If your leather is very dry, the oil will be absorbed quickly and you will need to apply more olive oil as needed.

I rubbed a thin amount of olive oil over the entire leather chair and waited a few minutes before applying more. I could see where it soaked in more in some areas and required more oil. I could also see places where the oil didn’t absorb as much and I needed to rub it in further. Again just add a bit of olive oil to your rag and apply more until you get the light sheen you desire.

After about an hour or so, I came back with a new clean rag and rubbed over the entire chair to wipe off any excess oil and made sure it was clean and dry for use.

The result is a clean, great-looking used leather chair. I was able to remove the stains from the chair and it looks very nice now. So if you need to clean or condition any leather furniture or your car seats, I hope you will try out my useful idea for this homemade leather cleaning process.