Looking after your genuine leather suite

Top grain leather rewards a little attention and punishes neglect. There is really only one job on this page that air leather does not ask of you — conditioning — and it is the one that decides whether your suite looks better in ten years or cracked in three.

Everything else here is common sense, and most of it is about what not to do.

• What top grain is
• Everyday cleaning
• Conditioning
• Never use these
• Spills
• Marks and patina
• Sunlight and heat
• Air and damp
• Storing it
• Sitting on the arms
• Using the recliners
• Pets
• If something goes wrong

What top grain is, and why the care follows from it

Your suite is covered in top grain hide: the outer, strongest layer of the skin, lightly sanded to even out natural blemishes, with a protective finish applied over it. Every panel is hide — the backs, the sides and the outside arms as well as the parts you sit against.

Two things follow from that, and between them they explain this entire page.

• Hide is a material all the way through. It is not a coating on a backing, which is why a specialist can often clean it back and re-colour it years later. Damage is frequently recoverable rather than permanent.
• Hide is skin, and skin dries out. It contains oils that keep the fibres flexible. Heat, sunlight, air conditioning and simple time drive those oils out. Replace them and the leather stays supple; do not, and the fibres stiffen and eventually crack. That is what conditioning is for, and it is the whole reason hide asks more of you than a man-made covering does.

The finish on top grain does a lot of work for you — it resists staining far better than an unfinished surface would — but it sits on the leather. It does not feed it.

Everyday cleaning

Weekly

• Dust with a dry, soft cloth. Grit is abrasive and it collects where the seat meets the back.
• Vacuum the seams and the sides of the seats on low suction with the soft brush attachment, and use the crevice tool down the gaps.
• Plump the fibre-filled back cushions and give them a shake.

When it needs more than dusting

1. Get the loose dirt off first, as above. Never wipe grit around a hide surface.
2. Warm water in a bowl. Nothing in it.
3. A clean, soft cloth. Wring it out until it is barely damp, not wet. Hide absorbs, and a wet cloth will leave a water mark that takes days to even out.
4. Wipe one panel at a time, working the whole panel rather than one spot, so nothing dries as a ring.
5. Dry it off immediately with a second dry cloth.

Water only. Hide does not need detergent and detergent does the same thing to hide that it does to any other skin: it strips the oils out. There is a section below listing what to keep away from it.

Conditioning — the one job that matters

Every six to twelve months, feed it. Twice a year is a sensible habit; once a year is the minimum. If your lounge is very dry, air-conditioned, or gets a lot of winter heating, lean towards six months.

How to do it

1. Clean and dry the suite first. Conditioner over dirt seals the dirt in.
2. Test the conditioner on a hidden panel — the back of the three-seater, or the outside of the single chair where it faces the wall. Let it dry a full hour, then look at it in daylight. Colour the same? Not tacky? Not darkened? Good.
3. Put a small amount on the cloth, never straight onto the suite.
4. Work it in with light circular strokes, a panel at a time. Thin and even beats thick and generous — leather can only take up so much, and the rest sits on the surface collecting dust.
5. Do not forget the panels nobody looks at. The outside arms and the back dry out fastest because they are nearest the wall and the window.
6. Leave it to absorb for the time the maker says, then buff gently with a clean dry cloth.
7. Let it finish drying before anyone sits on it.

Never use these on it

Damage from harsh detergents, solvents and saddle soap is not covered by the warranty, and neither is failing to condition the leather. Neither of those is a technicality: they are the two ways a good hide suite gets ruined by somebody trying to look after it.

Spills

Speed matters more on hide than on a coated surface, because hide absorbs. The first minute is worth more than everything you do afterwards.

1. Blot immediately with a clean dry cloth. Press and lift. Never rub — rubbing drives liquid into the grain and spreads the mark.
2. Work from the outside of the spill inwards.
3. Then a barely damp cloth, water only, feathered out over the whole panel rather than just the spot, so it does not dry as a ring.
4. Dry it off, and let the panel dry naturally. Never use a hairdryer or put a heater near it.

• Tea, coffee, cooldrink, juice — blot hard and fast, then damp cloth over the panel, then dry.
• Red wine — the same, immediately. Do not reach for salt, vinegar or white wine; every one of those household remedies is worse for hide than the wine is.
• Oil, butter, gravy and chip fat — this is the one hide handles worst. Lift what you can with a dry cloth and do not add water: water spreads grease into the grain. Many light oil marks fade on their own over a week or two as the oil disperses. If it does not, send us a photograph.
• Milk, ice cream, yoghurt — deal with it now, even if it looks like nothing. Dairy in a seam sours.
• Chocolate — let it harden, lift the solid part off, then damp cloth.
• Candle wax — let it set completely, then lift the edge gently. Never pick at soft wax and never use heat to melt it off.
• Chewing gum — ice in a plastic bag on top until hard, then lift slowly. If it will not come, stop and call us.
• Blood — cold water only. Warm water sets it.
• Ballpoint, marker, ink, nail polish, shoe polish, hair dye — do nothing and call us. Every household remedy for ink is a solvent, and a solvent will take the finish off with the ink.

Marks, grain and patina — what is not a fault

These are the things people ring us about in the first month, and none of them is a defect:

• Grain and tone vary from panel to panel and from hide to hide. That is what skin looks like. A surface that is perfectly identical everywhere is a printed one.
• Small natural markings — healed scratches, insect marks, growth lines, slight differences in pore density. An animal lived in that skin. On a genuine hide these are evidence, not damage.
• Stretch and creasing where you sit. Hide relaxes and takes the shape of use, particularly on the seat and the headrest. It is meant to.
• Colour deepening with age. This is the patina you paid for.
• A slight difference between the piece in your lounge and the one in a photograph. Dye lots vary. We will always send you a photograph of the actual suite before it leaves if you ask.

Light surface scuffing can often be improved with conditioner and a soft cloth. Deeper marks are worth a photograph to us before you try anything — on hide, a great many things that look permanent are not.

Sunlight and heat

The same rule as any upholstery, and for hide the reason is more direct: sunlight and heat drive the oils out, and dry leather is stiff leather, and stiff leather eventually cracks. It happens to the side facing the window first, which is what makes it obvious.

• Don’t place the suite where direct sun falls on it, especially in front of a west-facing window or a glass sliding door
• If that is the only place it can go, hang a sheer curtain or blind and close it in the afternoon, or fit UV film on the glass
• Keep it at least a metre from heaters, gas heaters, fireplaces and heated towel rails
• If one part of the room is brighter than the rest, swap the pieces around every few months so no single panel takes all of it
• Condition more often, not less, if the room is bright or dry

Fading, drying and cracking caused by direct sunlight or a heater is not covered by the warranty. This is why we spend this much space on it.

Air, damp and the room

Hide breathes, which is one of the reasons it is comfortable to sit on for hours. It also means the room it lives in matters.

• Leave a gap between the back of the suite and the wall. A cold outside wall in winter holds condensation against anything pressed flat to it, and damp hide can grow mould.
• In a humid or coastal home, wipe and dry rather than wipe and leave, and check the panels nearest an outside wall now and then.
• Very dry air is the opposite problem — air conditioning and winter heating pull moisture out of leather. That is a conditioning question, not a cleaning one.
• Don’t dry washing over it or near it.

Storing your suite

More suites are damaged in storage than in use, and hide is less forgiving of a bad store than a man-made covering is.

Before it goes away

• Close every recliner fully.
• Clean it, let it dry completely, and condition it. Leather going into months of storage should go in fed, not dry — a stored suite gets no attention and cannot ask for any.

• Never wrap it in plastic. Hide has to breathe, and sealed plastic traps moisture against it. This is worse for leather than for any other covering.
• Use old cotton sheets, blankets or proper breathable furniture covers.
• Off the floor, on a pallet or timber battens. Concrete floors sweat.
• Upright on its feet. Not on its side, not on its back, not on end.
• Nothing stacked on top of it. The arms and seat edges will take a permanent crease.
• Not in a closed tin-roofed garage or a shipping container if you can avoid it. Heat is what dries leather out, and a closed garage in a Johannesburg summer gets far hotter than any room in the house.
• Away from cars, paint, thinners, fuel and cleaning chemicals.
• Somewhere dry, and not against an outside wall.

When it comes out

• Air it for a day, wipe it down, and condition it before it goes back into use.
• Check the recliners work smoothly before you load the room around it.

Moving it

• Recliners closed. Always. It is not covered otherwise.
• Lift by the frame, underneath. Never drag or lift by the arms, the back rail or the footrest.
• Two people per piece, and don’t drag it across a floor.
• Take doors off their hinges rather than forcing the suite through a frame — forcing it scuffs the leather on the corners first, and corner scuffs on hide are the hardest to hide.

Sitting on the arms

Of everything on this page, this is the habit most likely to cost you a repair, and it has nothing to do with the leather.

The arms are not seats. They are upholstered panels over a frame rail. Every seat on the suite is rated to 130kg — the arms are not seats and carry no such rating.

An arm rail takes a downward and sideways load it was never designed for. The joint works loose slowly: first a creak, then a little movement when you lean on it, then the rail cracks — and because the recliner handle is mounted on the arm, a loose arm becomes a mechanism that does not sit square and does not latch. On hide there is a second cost: sitting on the edge of an arm puts the whole load onto a narrow fold in the leather, and a crease worked into hide that way is permanent.

The same goes for the back rail and for the open footrest. None of it is covered by the warranty.

Using the recliners

Your Cordoba is hand-operated. No motor, no transformer, no cable — one less thing to fail, and it works in a power cut.

The 3-2-1 suite has six seats and five of them recline: the centre seat of the three-seater is fixed. That is by design, not a fault.

• Open and close it with the handle. Don’t force the backrest with your body weight.
• Let it close under control rather than letting it slam shut.
• Leave clearance behind so the back is not pressing a wall as it goes.
• Check underneath the footrest before you close it.
• One person per seat. Each seat has its own mechanism, built for one person.
• Nobody rides it, rocks it or uses it as a see-saw.
• Don’t drop into a seat from standing, kneel on the front edge, or stand on the seats to hang a curtain. Use a step ladder.

Pets

Claws are the problem, and on hide they are a bigger problem than on a coated surface, because a scratch in leather is a cut in the material rather than a mark on a coating.

• Keep nails trimmed if pets are allowed on the suite
• A washable throw over the seat they favour is the simplest answer
• Clean saliva and any accident immediately, and dry the area. Both will mark hide, and urine will do it permanently if it soaks in

Small things that mark it

• Belt buckles, jean rivets, watch clasps, rings worn on the back of the hand
• Keys, phones and coins in back pockets
• Scissors, box cutters, knitting needles and craft knives on the seat
• Hair oil, gel, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, fake tan, hand cream and essential oils. These end up on the headrest, which is the panel that shows wear first. If somebody uses hair product daily, put a washable throw over the headrest of their seat — the cheapest insurance on this page
• New dark denim, on a light-coloured hide. Give new jeans a wash or two first

If something goes wrong

WhatsApp us on 083 378 7864 with your order number. Send a photograph, and a short video if it is a mechanism problem. We aim to answer within one working day, and most mechanism issues are sorted out in your lounge without the suite going anywhere.

Genuine leather suites carry a 2 year factory warranty from the date of delivery. Feeding the leather with a pH-neutral conditioner as instructed is a condition of it. Full terms are on the warranty page.

Quick reference

We build these suites in Johannesburg, South Africa, so if something does go wrong you are dealing with the people who made it. If you want to understand what you have bought in more detail, the leather buyer’s guide explains the grades and what separates them.

Download this guide as a PDF Keep it with your paperwork. We also send it with your order when the suite is delivered.