Oil products like olive oil, oil soap and WD-40 can ruin the leather seats in your car, so you should not use them. Old wives’ tales say oil helps soften up and condition leather, but that only works for baseball mitts and cowboy horse saddles – not your nice leather seats.
Leave any additional questions in the comments or check out our post on wives’ tales related to leather care.
Eating fast food in your car is unavoidable on some busy days, and we’ve all had those, “Oh crap!” moments when fries went flying all over the car seat. Although this isn’t unusual or uncommon, it’s probably not something you should brush off too lightly if you have leather seats. Grease and oil, even just the natural oils in your skin, can really add up and cause damage to your leather seats. In fact, oil (from food or just the oil in your skin) is one of the main reasons leather car seats end up looking old and worn.
There are two main ways that oil causes damage to leather auto seats:
1. Oil combines with little bits of dust and dirt, acting like a fine sand paper that wears down the protective coating on your seats as passengers get in and out of your car. That protective layer makes your leather seats more resilient to scratches, water and heat damage as well as other types of wear and tear, so, once that layer is worn thin, your seats are more susceptible to all types of damage.
Seat worn, over time, from dirt and oil
2. When oil gets on your leather seats, especially once it starts to break down that protective coating, it is soaked into the back side of the leather—the part you can’t see. Over time, the leather will “fill up,” and the oil will rise to the surface. Once the oil saturates the leather, the result is typically ugly oil stains.
To prevent oil damage, you should clean and protect your car seats 6-8 times a year, cleaning the most used areas more frequently than those that aren’t used very often. Check out our leather cleaning post for tips on leather cleaning and protection.
Additionally, never treat your leather with olive oil, petroleum or any other type of oil. A lot of people do to try to prevent drying, but the oil you use will get soaked up just like any other oil, resulting in spots and discoloration.
If you find oil spots on your car seats, you can try to remove them by rubbing the area with a soft leather cleaner. You may be able to temporarily remove the spot, but since more oil remains deep within the leather, you will probably see it resurface over time.
Depending on the extent of the damage, a professional may be able to do a more thorough cleaning of the leather seat than you will be able to do yourself, as they have special cleaning tools and processes that can cleanse deep into the leather.
Post any additional questions in the comments, and we’d be happy to answer them for you!
If you own a boat and your seats have cushions, it is highly likely those cushions are made of vinyl. Vinyl is an ideal material for boat seats because it is not easily damaged by water and holds up well in most any weather. While this material is very durable, surface dirt can wear it down over time.
Cracked vinyl boat seat
When people sit, stand and move around on your boat seats, the dirt and oils on the surface act like a fine sand paper. Those particles wear down the surface, making vinyl more susceptible to cracking, fading and staining. These tiny bits of grime can get down into the vinyl once it begins to wear down, causing it to look old. If you want your vinyl seats to last, you need to clean them regularly – and not just with water. Cleaning well with appropriate cleaners will remove the dirt and oil on the surface of vinyl seats, keeping grime from damaging your seats in the long run.
Check out our vinyl cleaning post for a quick tutorial on how to clean vinyl boat seats.
Post any additional questions in the comments, and we’d be happy to answer them for you!
With dry, dirty or scratched leather, you may find yourself scouring the internet for DIY treatments. Many articles cite olive oil as a cure-all for every leather ailment, from scratches to dryness to odors. It is likely that this myth came from the age old practice of oiling baseball gloves and horse saddles. Oil may have its perks in functionality for those purposes, but we strongly discourage using any type of oil on your fine leathers.
One of the worst things to eat on leather couches is buttered popcorn – yes, the all-time favorite movie snack. What a bummer.
Unfortunately, folks, leather is extremely porous by nature, and it will soak up any oils you put on it – and that includes popcorn grease, lotion and the natural body oils that we all have on our skin. You won’t notice any damage at first, but oils can cause some real trouble down the road.
