Leather care: how to keep a wallet or belt for ten years

Full grain leather does not need much, but it needs the right things, and Pakistan's climate makes two of them matter more than they would in Europe: heat and humidity. This is the routine we give customers, in the order it comes up. Most of it takes a minute a month.

The rule that covers everything

Keep it dry, keep it out of the sun, and let it breathe. Leather is skin. It cracks when it dries out, it moulds when it stays damp, and it fades when it sits in direct light. If a situation would be uncomfortable for your own hand for an hour, it is bad for leather for a day.

Daily: nothing, almost

Carry it and handle it. The oils in your hands are the best conditioner a wallet gets. Do not keep a wallet in a back pocket you sit on for hours; it bends the fold and the cards. Do not leave a belt coiled tight in a drawer for months; store it rolled loosely or hanging from the buckle.

Monthly: a dry wipe

Wipe the piece with a soft, dry cloth to take off dust and grit. Grit is what scratches the wax finish on crazy horse leather. Empty the wallet once a month and shake out whatever has collected in the note section. That is it.

Twice a year: condition

Use a small amount of leather balm or a neutral leather conditioner, the kind sold for shoes. Rub a pea sized amount in with your fingers or a cloth, wait ten minutes, then buff with a clean cloth. Twice a year is right for Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad. In very dry heat, such as summer in the interior of Sindh or Balochistan, three times a year. In a humid coastal flat, once may be enough. More conditioner is not better; too much makes the leather soft and the surface sticky.

Avoid petroleum jelly, coconut oil and mustard oil. All three are common home remedies and all three darken the leather unevenly and go rancid in the heat.

When it gets wet

Monsoon rain, a spilled glass, a ride in the rain on a bike. Blot it with a cloth, do not rub. Take the cards out of a wallet so they do not transfer dye. Let it dry at room temperature, away from a fan heater, the sun or a car dashboard; fast drying is what makes leather stiff and cracked. Once it is dry, the dark water mark on crazy horse leather will look alarming. Rub it with your thumb and then condition lightly, and it blends back into the patina within a few days.

Humidity and mould

This is the one problem specific to Pakistan's coastal cities and the monsoon months. Leather stored in a closed cupboard in damp air can grow a white or grey bloom. It is not permanent. Wipe it off with a cloth dampened with a little white vinegar in water, let the piece dry in open air out of the sun, then condition. To prevent it, store leather where air moves, not sealed in plastic, and never put a damp wallet or belt away.

Heat and the car

A wallet left on a car dashboard in June reaches a temperature that melts the wax finish and dries the hide. The same goes for a belt in a parked car's door pocket. Take leather with you. If a piece has been cooked once, condition it early and it usually recovers; twice and it will crack at the folds.

Scratches and scuffs

On crazy horse leather a scratch is a mark in the wax, not a cut in the hide. Rub it with your thumb and most of it goes. A deeper scuff softens with a drop of conditioner. A cut through the surface is permanent, but on this leather it reads as character rather than damage. If you want to understand why the colour moves, read crazy horse leather explained.

Belts: three extra points

• Fasten on the middle hole. Forcing a belt a hole tighter stretches the leather around that hole and the buckle tongue.
• Roll it loosely for storage or hang it. Do not fold a belt in half; it creases.
• Check the screw post on the buckle once a year and tighten it with a coin if it has loosened.

Wallets: three extra points

• Do not overfill. Slots stretch to the number of cards you keep in them and do not shrink back.
• Keep coins out unless the wallet has a coin section; they scratch the lining and distort the shape.
• Rotate which pocket it lives in now and then, so the patina stays even.

What ten years looks like

A Stagr wallet or belt that is wiped, conditioned twice a year and kept out of the sun will be darker, softer and glossier than the day it arrived, with the stitching intact, because a saddle stitch does not unravel. The edges will have rounded and the colour will have moved to wherever your hands go. That is the reason to buy full grain leather in the first place. Our full range is made for exactly that.