How to Condition a Leather Bag

Transcription

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison and we love to help the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. In today's video, I'm excited to show you how easy it is to condition your leather briefcase. A quality leather briefcase can have a good long-life if you treat it properly. And just like with leather shoes it's important to condition your leather briefcase. In today's video, I'm going to show you how to use two products available from Saphir to condition and rejuvenate your leather briefcase.

The first one is Saphir's leather lotion which uses a mink oil. This is a great conditioning cream with a little bit of waxes very similar to the Saphir Renovateur except less thick in consistency. And second is the Saphir Canadian cream which again is much like the Saphir Pommadier cream polish Medaille d'Or. It's more like a shoe polish than it is a permanent reconditioner and does a great job to condition, nourish and then also recolor and polish a leather briefcase. In today's video i'm going to be using the neutral, but this is also available with several different colored pigments. If you have any questions or comments during this video, please ask them in the comment section below. I enjoy getting back to as many of those as possible.

Here we have a leather briefcase that we're going to condition today. As you can see it's a very old briefcase and the leather is beginning to dry out a little bit which is leading to some cracking in the surface. The Saphir leather lotion is a beeswax based cream polish enriched with an ultra nourishing mink oil. So I recommend first using this to condition the bag. Then in order to ensure that that's sealed, I recommend using the neutral Canadian cream which again is going to further nourish and condition this leather, but it has beeswax in it that will seal it off and make sure that you don't get any pigment or wax rubbing off onto your clothing. Before we apply anything to the briefcase, make sure you wipe it down with a clean cotton chamois, maybe even a little bit of water depending on how dirty the briefcase is.

First because I really want to deeply nourish and condition this leather, I'm going to apply a small dollop of the Saphir leather lotion onto our chamois and rub this into the leather. I'm going to use small circular movements and firm pressure to really massage and work the leather lotion into the leather. Massage the conditioner into the leather over the entire surface of the briefcase, then wipe off any excess with a clean area of the cotton chamois. Allow the leather lotion 15 to 20 minutes to dry and be absorbed into the leather, then buff it off using a large horsehair brush. If it looks like not all of the wax has been buffed to a shine, you can also use a cotton chamois with a little bit of water to buff the rest of that wax to a nice shine.

Second for additional nourishment, additional waxes and pigment should it be required, I'm going to apply the Saphir Canadian cream polish. Now this polish as I said has been designed specifically for large leather goods and you don't have to worry about any of the polish or pigments rubbing off onto your clothing. Apply this the same way you did the leather lotion with a cotton chamois. Using small circular motions and medium to firm pressure to really massage this into the leather. Allow it 15 to 20 minutes to be fully absorbed by the leather and dry. After its dried, buff off using a horsehair brush and a cotton chamois and a little bit of water if necessary. Here I'm just using a neutral because I want to keep the original kind of patina of this bag, but the Canadian cream polish is available in a bunch of different colors and if you'd like to introduce some color to fix any scuffing or scratching, this is a great time to do it.

For more information on how to remove more difficult scuffing and scratches, take a look at our video on how to remove scratches from bags.

So with a little bit of treatment with the Saphir leather lotion and the Saphir Canadian cream, you can see that I've really totally rejuvenated this briefcase. It's definitely been nourished and hydrated. You can see that the leather is a little bit darker that's just because we've re-fed that with all the leather nutrients from these polishes. And even some of the smaller and lighter scuffs have been have been fixed. And then with the waxes that the the beeswax and the Canadian cream have given this briefcase a nice soft shine to it. So not a high gloss shine like would you would have on a pair of shoes, but a totally appropriate soft shine for a beautiful leather briefcase.

In today's video I'm wearing a cream linen suit from Formosa which is a Neapolitan tailor. As you can see it has a double pick stitch around the edge and is an absolutely great jacket or suit for summertime. These trousers have a 1 and 3/4 inch turn ups which again are great for a slightly more casual suit, which linen is. I have of course my trademark white shirt. I'm wearing a yellow, silk tie from Drake's of London and because of the long points, I'm definitely wearing a pair of our horn collar stays. These are the 2 and 3/4 inch collar stays to keep this that collar controlled and lying flat. And a beautiful linen pocket square from Simonnot Godard which has an absolutely lovely blue and dark navy pinstripe around the border. I also have on my Cleverley Russian Reindeer split toe derbies with a pair of linen socks.

If you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs up and please subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications by clicking the bell to the right of the subscribe button so that you can learn whenever we release new videos. If you have any questions or comments about anything we discussed on this video, please ask them in the comment section below. And of course please visit hangerproject.com, where we have the largest most comprehensive collection of luxury garment care and shoe care accessories in the world, as well as, many other incredible products for the well-dressed. And while you are there, subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new product launches, promotions, as well as, a weekly digest of all the videos we publish here on our YouTube channel. I'm Kirby Allison and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Thanks for joining me.