Routine Leather Cleaning and Care - The GYEON Way

When it comes to caring for your leather, with a quick Google search you can find a million different opinions on how to properly protect your leather. Some people like the old-school methods of normal leather conditioner and some prefer the newer methods of adding a top coat to the leather. Today, let's go over the Gyeon way of keeping your leather, whether it's ceramic coated or not, clean and protected.

Leather Maintenance

Routine maintenance is crucial for keeping your leather in good condition. Over time, dirt, oils, and UV exposure can deteriorate leather, leading to fading, cracking, and tearing. Regular cleaning and protection are essential to prevent these issues. You want to think of your leather like your skin. You want to give it the best chance to make it as far as you can before it's time to either sell the car or recover the seats, dash, etc. 

Light Cleaning

Let's start with the most common form of cleaning that you’ll want to do which is just a light dusting with good vacuuming. If you are already doing your interior, chances are you’re vacuuming anyways. So go ahead and suck up any dirt, debris, etc. from your seat with a soft or rounded edge nozzle to not scratch the leather in the process. Make sure to pull the seams of your leather apart and get every crack and crevice as you don’t want to be wiping any big and potentially abrasive dirt around on the seat. Once you have that handled, go ahead and take a versatile interior cleaner like Interior Detailer and mist into a towel then wipe the seat down. All you are trying to do is keep the surface dust-free and grab any dirt you may have left behind from the vacuum. If you’re like me, who loves driving with the windows down, this is the best solution for a quick touch up in-between deeper cleanings. Use of Interior Detailer would be a great choice here for a quick interior purification as well. Importantly, for those who have LeatherShield already installed, our ecosystem of interior products is formulated to be safe on the coating. It will not deteriorate the coating even during wipe downs or scrubbing during your routine cleaning. 

Deep Cleaning

Now, when you start seeing your leather get shiny, tacky, or greasy, it's time to go a little further with your process. When you’re cleaning ceramic coated leather, you’re aiming to remove the layer of grime that has formed on the surface of the coating. LeatherCleaner Mild is the perfect choice for this exact purpose as it is a gentle solution formulated to cleanse light to medium contamination without being too harsh on existing protection. This is where Scrub Pad EVO comes into play; it's a nice, ergonomic, double-sided pad with tons of maneuverability to quickly clean the surface of the leather without being too abrasive. Use about 3 sprays of LeatherCleaner Mild into Scrub Pad and work in sections. Work the cleanser into the surface until you achieve a nice foaming lather, and then grab a microfiber towel, such as the LeatherWipe EVO,  and gently wipe the product & contamination off the seat. If you prefer Leather Brush, it's still great for this application but will be a bit more aggressive in it’s cleaning capabilities. Once you’re done, it's time to apply some protection!

LeatherCoat

Now we move on to one of my absolute favorite products, LeatherCoat. This product is very versatile, and adds a quick form of protection to the surface. This product adds UV protection while also making the leather smooth and soft. LeatherCoat offers a natural finish to the leather. You might ask, why would I want my leather to have added slickness, think about how you get in and out of your car. You are twisting, turning, sliding, and sometimes falling into your seats. Leather is naturally stiff, so all the time spent getting in and out of your vehicle is causing premature wear. This slickness will let you glide in and out more safely, especially for sensitive bolsters. Installation is a breeze too, apply 2-3 sprays into a towel and work in 2ft x 2ft sections on the seat working the product into the surface then flipping to the other side of the towel and lightly buffing off any streaks. Easy as that! Not only does it provide all that protection, it has an intoxicating high quality leather smell too. This is the perfect top up product to help you get the full durability out of Leathershield or a non-coated car.

In all, this is a pretty straight forward process. Ideally, if you keep up a decent routine, it won’t get to the point where you have to do a serious deep clean on the leather. Quick and intentional cleanings combined with quality protection is the key to not have your leather start breaking down early and get the maximum life out of it.

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