Leather Care

Our leathers are full grain (which means they are real old fashioned leather that hasn’t been manufactured, re-finished etc.).  It means they use the whole thickness of the natural hides.  This makes them super strong and they should last many, many years with a little care and attention.

Palmer And Sons semi-rigid luggage (No 03, No 09) is built of 8oz-12oz Veg Tanned Leather.  Take as much care of it as you would a leather saddle or a pair of leather shoes  (this is saddle leather that we use).  

Palmer And Sons  soft bags  (No 10) are built with a supple, 8 - 10oz thick water buffalo leather. These need very little care as the leather is rich in natural oils.

STRONG COLORS... Strong colors may initially bleed if constantly rubbed against lighter fabrics. We do seal darker colors to help prevent this happening as much as possible. 

IF IT GETS SOAKED...If you do drop it in a river, then remove as much obvious surface moisture as possible, fill the bag with clean white paper to retain it’s shape, and put it somewhere at room temperature.  Don’t use heat in any form to dry it.  Once totally dry (maybe a couple of days) then you need to add some conditioning back into the leather to stop it drying out.

CONDITIONING... There are lots of conditioning treatments for leather.  However the oldest forms are typically the best. Mink Oil and neatsfoot oild tend to darken leather so we don't use them.   Saddle Soap is great if a little messy to apply.  Feibing also have a product called “Aussie” that we use all the time, for just about every item we make, our advice would be to use that, but use it very sparingly.  They will all tend to darken the leather somewhat, however over time the leather will return nearer to it’s former shade.  Maybe do this once a year or so for the oils, the Saddle Soap can be used a little more frequently.

 IF YOU BREAK IT...the great thing about leather, rather than plastics, polymers, Gortex etc..is that every town or village in the world has a leather/shoe repair shop.  Everything we use to make these bags could be found in a village in Nepal.  We can also provide a small amount of Emergency Repairs with each bag..just in case!  If a rivet where to break then ask your local cobbler to replace it with a solid brass Chicago Screw (PS.. this has happened three times ever and we set around 400 rivets a week on average)  

Hope this helps, please contact us for further info...