Effect of Alcohol on Leather.

Here is the body of an email recently received and photos as well.

"I have a recliner which is brown leather, 20 years old, but was in good condition. We sprayed it with fulll-concentration rubbing alcohol to kill mites. The alchohol has left white areas which are residues or stains (bleached areas). They don't wash off with soap, tho while they are wet they appear to be restored to the original brown color. I'm not sure if we need something special to clean them, vs. needing to restain the leather."

As you can see, the alcohol stripped the color from the leahter.

Alcohol is a stripping agent and will pull the color out of leather, leaving the affect you see.



This is correctable, but requires a full refinish or a kit for you to do the work.

Finally, As an aside, mites are generally not an issue with leather as its not a woven material, so there is no place for them to "hide" as they would with a fabric. A good leather cleaner would have done the trick for you and not effected the color.

Copyright 2010, Kevin Gillan