Cleaning oil stains on leather?

[dsms]

A customer called me today regarding his wifes Mercedes stained leather. He said she spilled some kind of oil (maybe olive oil) on the rear seats and asked if I had something to get the stain out. Im sure the stain has been sitting for a long time already. Now I would think using a strong leather cleaner would do the trick but I feel it might not work to get the full stain out. Any tips on a thick oil based stain in leather? I have both LM strong cleaner and the Rapid S cleaner which should work well but it may not be enough.

[judyb]

This will depend on several factors, the type of leather is a key one. If the leather is at all absorbent (come across several recently) then the oil will have soaked into the leather and no amount of cleaning will get rid of it. If it has soaked into the leather then you will need to use a degreaser to remove the oil stain and this may (or may not) pull colour with it (again you won`t know until you try) in which case you will need to know how to resolve this problem too.



If the leather is a pigment coated one and the oil has been sitting on the surface then your cleaners should clean away the residues. If the oil has been sitting for a long time it may have left a grease mark which your cleaners will not remove. This may take stronger solvents to shift or it may need degreasing depending on the severity of the mark. If you use a degreaser you will be able to colour over the top when you have finished but you will not be able to recolour if there is any oil/grease present as the pigment will not adhere.



Hope this makes sense and helps