Yeah, you totally just got a grease stain on your leather, dag-niberry-nabbit. Grease is one of those stains that really makes the wrong kind of impression on your leather: the kind of impression that makes you and everyone else groan in disgust, wallow into little puddles of misery, and lament all that was once good and right in the world and is now lost forever. Everything is for naught.

Yeah, right! Listen up: grease stains, while harmful to your leather if allowed to sit too long, can be exterminated. Don’t worry. You’re still going to be wearing that shiny leather jacket out in public, and it’s still going to dazzle all the guys or girls just like it always does. Why, you ask? Because we’ve got a few handy tips for you that should be just the ticket to your de-greasing leathery success! Put on your gloves and get ready to clean grease from leather, because ready or not, here we come!

The most important factor here is to act fast. That means as soon as you see the grease stain, you must act, no matter what you might be doing. Unless you are, say, diving into the road to save a little kid from an oncoming truck. Leather can wait for that. After you've made the newspapers and gotten out of the hospital, all you will need to clean grease from leather is a soft cloth and corn starch. Double-taking yet? No jokes here. That omnipresent powdery thing that’s always staring at you ominously from the kitchen pantry actually has what it takes to cure your leather malady! Hurray! As a substitute for corn starch, you may also use talcum powder. Yes, the kind you use on your baby's derriere. Go have fun.

“Just keep blotting” will be your new motto when you clean grease from leather. Before you apply any cleaners or try anything else, you want to try to blot up as much grease as possible. Use a clean, soft cloth and just keep blotting. Blot. Blot. Blot away. Your goal here is to blot as much grease as possible onto the cloth. Go ahead, make a game of it and see how fast you can blot the largest amount of grease onto your cloth or...something. I can't really think of a good game right now. Go on the internet and look up a game you can make out of this. Just remember that the quicker that you blot the grease, the less likely it is that it will seep into your purse or coat and get damaged.

Now comes the best part: sprinkling your leather item with the corn starch! Full disclosure: you actually want to be somewhat liberal with the application of said powder for best results, so don't treat it like powdered sugar on your french toast. Moderation is magnanimous. Spread the powder anywhere that the grease touched and then let it sit. This is where your zen training will need to come into play. You will need to let the corn starch sit for several hours, or better yet, overnight. This allows the grease ample time to be absorbed by the powder. Just pretend your leather is meditating.

Once you gave your patience a run for its money with the zen meditation drill, it’s time to brush the powder away. Again, you want to avoid rubbing at all costs because this will only cause another stain on your leather. Gently brush or scrape the powder away from your leather with a soft, clean cloth and marvel at the awesomeness of Kung Fu clean grease from leather magic. Grease on, grease off, reader-san.

If your leather is finished with a pigmented coat (read our blog “Leather Care for Finished and Unfinished Leather Furniture” if you don’t know what that means), it’s also a good idea to give it a cleaning. Use a cleaner specifically designed for leather, not the standard commercial variety. You can read about why that won’t work in our blog “Common Leather Care Mistakes.” Chamberlain's Straight Cleaner No. 2 should work wonders for most finished leather varieties. Just to make sure, however, it’s always best to give your leather cleaner a test before you commit. Leather can be picky about what kinds of cleaners it takes, and sometimes you can end up permanently altering your leather if you use a leather cleaner or conditioner recklessly. Try wiping a small amount in an inconspicuous area with a clean, white cloth and let it dry. Check for any discoloration on your bag or excessive color rub off on your cloth. If neither of these happen, and there are none other harmful side effects, you should be good. Wipe that leather cleaner in circular motions with gentle strokes, evenly and in thin layers across the surface of the leather. Wipe off any excess cleaner after you have covered the entire item, and let it dry in a cool, indoors area away from sunlight and direct heat.

After all of this hard work reanimating your leather from its infectious grease stain, it is best to condition it. Make sure that you are using an appropriate leather conditioner, such as Chamberlain's Leather Care Liniment No. 1, which provides your leather with a gentle cleanser and refresher. This step is essential in preserving the life of your leather, especially after accidentally after a showdown with something as pesky as grease. You can use mostly the same drill as above to condition your leather. Test first, apply in gentle, even strokes with circular motions across the leather using a soft, clean cloth or applicator pad, and let it dry for fifteen minutes. Buff it off afterwards, and let it shine.

"Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hmm? Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk down center, sooner or later, splat. You get squish, just like grape. Here, karate same thing. Either you karate do yes or karate do no. You karate do guess so, splat. Just like grape."

Wow, that was really deep, Mr. Miyagi! Grease, like oncoming cars hurdling into us as we take a soothing stroll down the road, can be difficult to avoid. Sometimes, it just seems inevitable something’s going to go splat. But if we take care to avoid putting ourselves in reckless situations (unless saving little kids from oncoming trucks), we can avoid needless and horrifying messes. Even better, if we know how to deal with these messes, we can go splat and still come out unscathed – on the grease part, not so much on the grapes. In future, try to avoid exposing your valuables to situations where you might have to clean grease from leather later. If you need to, wipe off your hands before touching your leather, or set them in a spot safely away from where grease might spill. And even if you do spill it, remember it’s not the end of the world – like it would be if you were walking in the middle of the road. Seriously, don’t try that.

Contributors
Stephanie Clarke
Daniel Sutton
Mr. Miyagi
This helpful bunch! (www.howtocleanstuff.net)

Got more leather questions? Suggest a blog topic to us here!