How To Keep Bonded Leather From Cracking?

Some people do not approve of the fact that some leather products like a bag, a wallet or even furniture is made of real animal hide. As the result, they resort to available alternatives. One of such alternative is to buy bonded leather products For people familiar with the term, the main question that pop into their heads is how to keep bonded leather from cracking. For others, what does bonded leather mean? Below we will shortly describe what bonded leather is, and afterwards, how to keep bonded leather from cracking.

Therefore, without further ado, let’s dive right into it.

Bonded Leather

Essentially, bonded leather refers to a product that has a polyurethane component. It consists of small scraps of real leather, which are bonded with an adhesive in order to create the base of the material. Polyurethane maintains the appearance of real leather while lacking its attributes at the same time. It’s also much cheaper than real leather.

However, its durability goes in parallel with its price. Bonded leather is prone to damage such as peeling, cracking, and scratching to a much greater extent than real leather. Due to its non-elastic fabric, polyurethane strips tend to scratch or peel away after the material stretches. After this, the leather is pretty much unrepairable. Therefore, it’s best just to toss it and acquire a new one.

Fortunately enough, there’s a way to avoid this worst case scenario by simply preventing the occurrence of these problems.

Tips and tricks to preserve bonded leather

Move your leather away from sunlight

A decent number of people makes the same mistake by exposing their bonded leather bags and other products to direct sunlight. This causes the leather to fade out and start cracking over time. If we are talking about leather furniture, the most obvious solution would be to reposition it away from direct sunlight. However, it might get a little more complicated when it comes to handbags.

You could swap them regularly, so no one bonded leather purse would get too much exposure too often. However, it’s not always possible nor logical, therefore other tips might come more in handy.

Clean regularly

This can be done either by cleaning your product, be it sofa or handbag, with a damp piece of cloth every two or three weeks. If we are talking about a sofa, you could also consider vacuuming it. However, have in mind that when you vacuum your furniture, you have to use a soft brush attachment to avoid scratching the leather. Vacuum cleaner usually come with all sorts of different attachments. You can easily vacuum seams and hard-to-reach places if you use upholstery and crevice attachment tools.

Use leather conditioners

An effective way of maintaining and ensuring your leather durability is to condition it with a leather conditioner. You should apply it to your product at least a few times per month in order to preserve it for a longer period of time. When shopping for one, please ensure that you purchase a conditioner made for your leather products specifically, as it will make sure it does not harm it by some chance.

You can buy our balsam here, which is made specifically for all types of leather, be it bonded or full-grain.

Do not rub spills and stains

When you spill or stain your leather, avoid cleaning it by rubbing the cloth, because it can wear it out or soak in the stain. Instead, use a paper towel or something else that absorbs liquid well as soon as you spill something or stain it.

Do not use products that are not intended for leather

This brings to our earlier-mentioned point, that you should always choose a product dedicated to leather. A common mistake that people make is that they use various detergents, oils, and solvents to clean bonded leather. What this does is causes discoloration and thins out the layers of the leather. When buying leather conditioning and cleaning products, always ask whether they are intended to be used on bonded leather or not.

Avoid placing the bonded leather next to the heat sources

We mentioned that sunlight can permanently damage bonded leather due to its heat aspect. It’s no different from other heat sources such as a radiator, heater, stoves, etc. Be sure that your furniture is at least 15 inches away from any heat source, which can also be applied to your handbag.

Cleaning and maintaining bonded leather

Cleaning and maintaining bonded leather is partially similar to preserving real leather, because there’s at least 19% of real leather in it. Leather, like skin, gets dry overtime and requires to be moisturized in order not to crack. This is why we advise for you to use some kind of leather conditioner.

An interesting thing about conditioning ‘’fake’’ leather is that the prices of your conditioner and leather itself balance themselves out. If you get cheaper leather, you’ll have to use much more of the leather conditioner to extend your bonded leather product’s lifespan.  However, is it really worth it to buy a cheap product and having to spend all that time and money on preserving and extending its lifespan? Is it not the whole purpose of owning things, so they would serve you and not vise versa? Something to think about before getting another $20 “genuine leather” bag.

Conclusion

We hope that you learned a bit on how to keep bonded leather from cracking. No matter what you do, it’s no match against real leather. Therefore, if you decide to swap your bonded leather purse or briefcase into the real deal, then you have to check out our men’s and women’s collections.

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