Body oil stain removal on oyster vernasca leather

[AM340iMiami]

I’ve got some yellowing on seat bolsters and center console armrest from body oil. I can’t seem to get rid of it. I’ve used colourlock strong cleaner and other over the counter stuff. Anyone have any recommendations on how to remove it? Dawn soap maybe?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[tracer bullet]

I've always read to try dedicated leather cleaner. The downside is it might not do the job, the upside is that you should feel pretty safe it won't harm anything. You might try one of the major companies and chat with them?

Dish soap, generally speaking, is not harsh. Something OK for your hands is probably OK for your seat. And dish soap is great at breaking down oil and could be a good candidate.

Random thoughts - 1) Maybe start on a small area, even somewhere out of sight, to be 100% sure it's safe. 2) Plan to do the whole seat or both or even all the seats if it doesn't turn out quite uniform (i.e. it works so well that the other seats look dirty). 3) Consider something afterwards like one of the conditioners, in case the soap does have a drying effect.

[chefwong]

How was the cleaner applied. MF towel, wipe on/scour.
Or via a brush in which you agitated the grain.

I would not hesitate to do a high PH cleaner approach followed by a good few passes of water/MF rinsing afterwards

[AM340iMiami]

I used a brush and agitated the F out of it. Made multiple passes and reapplication. It reduced the discoloring a good amount but it is still noticeable.

[chefwong]

Don't go crazy as the color of the leather is a sprayed on color coat....you may accelerate wear of the color coat....

I'd try a high PH cleaner and do a simple wipe - something akin to 3X the PH of what Strong cleaner is. I'd choose a test spot like the corner of the bolster where it meets the back where it's less noticeable. If it doesn't come out with that, I'd just back off IMO. Not sure what is worse. The discoloration or the potential to have accelerated wear of the color coat (micro cracking, etc)

[AM340iMiami]

Thanks. Any recommendations?

[chefwong]

High PH cleaner is not the right PH for leather so I kinda don't want to steer you towards a specific recommendation. But it would something around PH 12-14 ish. I do the same on Vinyl with scuffs on the bottom doors. Instead of scrubbing till the cow's come home, I use this - it melts this stuff off where I just wipe it and then make sure I rinse thoroughly.

[AM340iMiami]

Understood. Appreciate it.

[AM340iMiami]

So if anyone was interested I tried a few things with some success. First off, i tried to some dawn dish soap with warm water and used a in interior detail brush. This cleaned the seat pretty well of regular dirt and grime and maybe even some minor color transfer. But did not remove the body oil/sweat stains.

Then I made sever passes with Colour Lock strong leather cleaner with a detail brush. TBH i couldn't tell if it made any kind of dent. A bit disappointing.

Third, i used a Mr. Clean magic eraser. Ive used this before on hard plastics, never seats as it can be really abrasive as you rub. This worked well at removing the oil/sweat stains but i could tell was really harsh on the leather and didnt want to keep at it for fear of stripping color/texture of the seat.

Lastly, i tried some of Ammo Titan 12 degreaser that I was really hesitant to use. Its got a PH level of 12. I tried it on an inconspicuous spot on the rear seat first by spraying on a soft detail brush. No signs of damage to leather so I made a few passes on the sweat/oil stains. Worked well. Not completely gone but 85% there. I didnt want to beat my seat up anymore than I already had for that day.

So there you have it. Do with that information as you will.

[jsf721]

I had great success with polish angel bella clean in my
Super light gray arm rest in my Infiniti.