Cleaning leather gloves

[mqqn]

Hi Folks -

I recently had to clean and refurb a pair of quality elk-skin roper gloves that I bought several years ago from Sullivan Glove.

My gloves are the roper with a fleece lining - my winter gloves from when I lived up in Illinois.

They were in my truck when I moved down here to TN, and unfortunately, my truck developed a leak in the rear window which cause the carpet and liner to get soaked and mildewed up badly. I got that fixed and the dealership "removed the carpet and sprayed...." etc.

I had been wondering what happened to my gloves and a couple days ago after it snowed here in south-central TN, I found the gloves, all molded and dry under the back seat of the truck - maybe the dealer tech threw them back under there? Who knows.

However - I found a way to clean and refurb the gloves.

I put them on my hands and just washed my hands with the gloves on under warm water using aloe and lanolin hand soap, soaping them up and rubbing them together for several minutes until the gloves were good and soaked and clean looking.

Then, I filled the liner up with water a couple times and squeezed the water out of the gloves, being careful not to TWIST or WRING the gloves - just squeezing. I also put the gloves on and stretched them, making a fist and pulling on the wrist until they were fitting better again as they had shrunk during their prison term under the seat.

I then laid them out on a bath towel to dry - pressing them into the towel and occasionally coming back and putting the gloves on and stretching as they dried.

It took about a day for them to dry completely - at room temp, don't try to heat them at all.

They are now clean and supple - the lanolin really did a job on the leather and they are soft like they were when I got them from Sullivan. A plus is that now my hands get some of the lanolin treatment when I put the gloves on - that might not last long but it is working right now.

I'll post some pictures of the gloves - didn't get before but they were really bad, I thought I had lost a pair of $80 gloves.

The gloves were covered with those little black spots - I got most all of them out except for the pictured -

And my ZT 0392 pictured with my Sullivan 80th Anniversary deerskin / Horween ropers (unlined).

best

mqqn

 

[fmrranger]

They turned out great, nice work!

 

[celticrogues]

Great advice, thank you for posting!

 

[bdmicarta]

You definitely needed something to "feed" the leather. And it helps to reapply occasionally. My first through when I saw this thread is that you could use products made for cleaning and restoring leather upholstery in automobiles. I have some of that in the garage that I use in my wife's car.

 

[Silent H]

I generally will use some hand lotion on my gloves after washing them like you did. Typically O'Keefe's Working Hands or Aveeno, whichever is handy at the time.

I put on the gloves and rub the cream in as if I was rubbing it into my hands.

 

[Uncle Timbo]

I clean my strop with that cheap, white, mechanics hand cleaner and hot water. But it must contain lanolin. Leather is leather?