Leather patina

The Bench Note Leather patina is the short version: leather remembers. This is the reference behind it.

What patina is

Vegetable-tanned leather leaves the tannery pale and matte. Three things change it:

• Light darkens it, steadily and evenly — a tote that lives near a window is darker than one that lives in a cupboard.
• Oil darkens it locally: from hands on a handle, from a face on a hat band, from a belt across a patch. The most-touched places go deepest.
• Handling burnishes it: the surface compresses and takes a soft sheen where it is rubbed, and it creases and scars where it is bent or knocked.

None of that is damage. It is the material recording its use, and it is the reason veg-tan is chosen for the places that get touched — see Leather.

What to do

Not much, and not often.

• Keep it dry when you can. Rain is not a disaster — let it dry slowly, away from heat, and it will be fine — but a leather that dries fast and unevenly can water-spot.
• Condition sparingly. A small amount of a plain leather conditioner, worked in with a cloth, once the leather starts to feel dry — perhaps once a year on a bag, less on a patch. Too much makes veg-tan limp and dark all over, and it never comes back.
• Wipe, do not scrub. A damp cloth for dirt. No soap unless it is a saddle soap meant for the job.
• Let it be. Scuffs soften with handling. A dark patch from a hand is the point.

What to avoid

Heat — radiators, hair dryers, a car dashboard in summer — which cooks the oils out and cracks the surface. Petroleum products and silicone sprays, which seal the surface and stop it aging. And the urge to keep it looking new; that is the one thing it cannot do.