A beautifully leather couch can decorate your living room and is a necessary piece of furniture. Also, it’s one of the most expensive pieces of furniture if you want to buy a leather couch of good quality.

It takes a lot of work to keep it looking good and filling. Well, you will be provided with the best way to clean a leather sofa and get some tips for caring for a leather sofa. We also believe that your sofa will last for many more years because of your efforts.

Why do we need to clean the sofa?

1. Keep the leather sofa looking good

If you haven’t cleaned your leather couch for a long time, it will accumulate dust and make its appearance no longer bright. It is a pity. Because you didn’t clean your sofa in time, you lost a terrific item.

Also, if you have not cleaned your sofa for a long time, this expensive sofa will lose its value. It gets dirty, cracks, and even peels off, and it’s a sofa with no aesthetics at all. You won’t like it.

2. Keep you away from allergens

Dust will accumulate on the sofa that you have not cleaned for a long time, and there will be food scraps that fall. If you are a cat family, your cat will leave some hair on it. These can easily lead to mold, bacteria, and mites on your leather sofa, which can lead to sensitive skin. At the same time, it is also very detrimental to health.

Understand the type of sofa

You take different cleaning and maintenance measures according to different sofa types to ensure that your leather couch can be kept clean without compromising its surface and longevity. Well, you need to know about the sort of sofa.

1. Natural Leather Sofa

1) Full Grain Leather

Full-grain leather sofas are the highest quality leather sofas. Its price is dear among all types of sofas. It uses top-quality animal skin (usually cowhide), which has a good touch and gloss. But its skin has cowhide textures and imperfections, which may be unacceptable to those who don’t like them.

2) Aniline-dyed leather

This leather is one full-grain leather, but the manufacturers use the light dyeing of the leather with aniline to character it. This leather chemically changes with air, so its color will become a more vintage effect. At the same time, this leather also has soft and skin-friendly touch. It is a higher-priced leather.

3) Embossed Grain Leather

To meet the needs of some customers who prefer no imperfections, producers emboss the leather to produce leather with a uniform material. Embossed grain leather is the most common type of leather because it is more conducive to mass production.

4) Bonding leather

For some materials that cannot support full leather, the production volume does not choose to waste them. They will melt these materials and rebound them into new leather. This leather is also one of the types of natural leather, but after a long time, its epidermis will peel off. Therefore, it is also the cheapest natural leather.

2. Artificial leather sofa

1) PU leather

PU leather is made by applying a polyurethane finish to upholstery fabrics such as cotton, nylon, or polyester and embossing the leather pattern to make it look like natural leather.

2) PVC leather

PVC leather is also a kind of artificial leather. It is a substance that combines cotton, nylon, and other materials by combining polyvinyl chloride with plasticizers, lubricants, etc. It is also a relatively economical material suitable for mass production. But it is worth noting that this material, if not handled properly, can become a very unfriendly substance to the environment.

How to clean a leather couch?

Not cleaning your sofa will make its surface dirty and harm you and your family’s health. But you need to know that the way of improper cleaning will not good for your leather sofa. Due to your mistakes, it may become older and shorten its lifespan.

1. You should prepare

1) Saddle Soap

Saddle Soap is a must for cleaning leather sofas. Of course, if you can find a milder soap, we’d recommend using it to reduce damage to the sofa.

2) Water

In general, you can use tap water, but we recommend that you use distilled water because the chlorine in tap water can chemically react with the surface of the leather sofa. Especially when your sofa’s material is aniline dyed leather, it is more beneficial to use distilled water to prolong its service life.

3) Soft fabric

When cleaning your leather sofa, you can use a soft cloth or microfiber towel to reduce the damage to it from friction.

4) Vacuum cleaner

You can clean the surface of the leather couch with a soft towel, but there are some gaps that your fingers can’t get. Therefore, you need the help of a vacuum cleaner that allows you to clean up some hidden corners.

5) Leather Conditioner

It is necessary to apply a leather conditioner for maintenance to ensure the leather sofa does not dry out and maintain its luster. Therefore, this is also one of the must-have items.

6) Rubbing alcohol/vinegar

Alcohol and vinegar are irritating substances, and using them to clean your leather sofa may cause minor damage. But when your sofa has deep stains that are hard to clean, you may have to go through them to help you get your couch clean.

7) Baking soda/flour

Aniline-dyed leather absorbs liquids quickly, which means that when you accidentally pour coffee or beverages on the sofa, it absorbs quickly and leaves some stains. But a dry towel can’t absorb its moisture completely, so you need baking soda or flour to help you absorb the residual left on the sofa.

2. The steps to clean leather couch

• Firstly, you need to clean up the sundries on your sofa;
• Then use a soft towel or microfiber towel to clean the dust on the leather couch;
• Next, for some corners that your hands can’t wipe, you can use a vacuum cleaner to clean them up
• You can use a cotton swab dipped in alcohol or vinegar to wipe the spot with deep stains repeatedly until no stains are visible
• Finally, you need to pour the leather conditioner on a dry towel and wipe your leather sofa to make sure it has enough oil and does not crack.

3. Precautions for cleaning leather sofa

1) When your sofa accidentally touches the chewing gum, you can accelerate the solidification of the chewing gum by using ice water and then gently dig it out with your fingers. Be careful to avoid sharp utensils to prevent scratching them.

2) When cleaning the leather sofa with soapy water, you can use warm water to allow the leather to stretch out for a thorough cleaning

3) When you accidentally spill your coffee or drink on your leather sofa, don’t wipe it hard with a dry towel. You can soak up the liquid with a dry towel, then sprinkle it with baking soda that can absorb the moisture. This process may take a day.

4) When cleaning, do not wet the leather sofa in a large area, which will cause it to mold and shorten its service life.

5) When cleaning spilled liquids or deep stains on leather sofas, only clean that area, not extend the dirty area to more.

6) When you use a leather conditioner to maintain the sofa, please remember to pour the leather conditioner on the dry towel instead of directly on the leather couch to avoid uneven color on the sofa surface.

How to maintain a leather couch?

1. Pay attention to clean

Cleaning your leather couch the right way is the first step in taking care of it. It keeps the surface of your sofa clean and not dusty. In addition, you also need to pay attention to the frequency of cleaning. Going too long without cleaning is the wrong thing to do, but cleaning too often can also shorten the life of your sofa.

You may need to give your leather sofa two preliminary cleanings in a week to wipe the dust from its surface. In addition, it is necessary to carry out thorough maintenance on the couch every six months.

2. Keep it away from heat sources

Excessive heat can change the surface of a leather sofa, which can cause it to bend, shrink, or fade. Therefore, you’d better choose a suitable location for your sofa, which will not be exposed to direct sunlight, away from air conditioners and fireplaces.

3. Watch out for your kids and pets

Children and pets are too young to realize their actions can negatively affect leather sofas. To reduce the chances of your sofa getting scratched, you need to pay more attention to the behavior of your children and pets to prevent them from spoiling the aesthetics of the leather couch.

4. Keep your leather sofa away from adamant objects

Adamant objects can easily scratch the leather sofa. When you use this utensil, you can consciously avoid the couch, and do not place these utensils directly on it to avert scratching it when you are not paying attention.

5. Stay away from drinks and food

Natural leather sofas are more absorbent, so when you accidentally spill liquids on them, it absorbs quickly. In addition, oil stains on food can easily spoil its perfect appearance. Although you can do your best to make it look like nothing happened, your leather sofa is damaged. Its lifespan is getting shorter.

6. Ventilate after cleaning

After you wash the sofa, you need to open the windows to allow the natural wind to dry them. In addition, you also need to pay attention to avoid sitting on the sofa until the leather conditioner on the couch is dry so as not to cause the leather to stain.

7. Remember to seek professional help

Maintaining the leather couch is something you insist on every day, but when you cannot restore your sofa to its original appearance, remember to seek professional help. For example, if you have no means of remediation to deal with the scratches on the couch, it would be a good decision to seek professional help.

Summarize

A well-maintained leather sofa is like a bottle of wine that will become more attractive over time. Cleaning and maintaining a leather sofa can be a hassle. But don’t give up. When you look at a well-maintained sofa, you’ll be proud of it.