Leather maintenance

[Philip Glass]

What are you favorite leather balms, preservatives, cures to bring back truly damaged leather, or well maintain what you spent good money on?
Two caveats: smell must not get me in trouble with wife (outdoor only recommendations still accepted) AND it would be great if selections did not run off deer by the unnatural smell!
Brands can encompass those of European or other sources. Personally I like the performance of Effax Leder-Balsam, but my German is a bit rusty to let me know all the ingredients beyond a bit of lanolin. Probably smells too nice and strong for the deer woods, sold at equestrian shops where they don't concern themselves with that.
Balistol fails the smell test, too, according to the missus.
What are your hunter favorites?
Hope for this to be of service to all.

PREFER RECOMMENDATIONS NOT BE STICKY AFTER APPLICATION, PLEASE.

Interested in others comments here. Do not worry about smells as they will dissipate in time. Deer smell your breath and other odors are of less concern. We all need to practice holding our breath

 

[SStomcat]

Interested in others comments here. Do not worry about smells as they will dissipate in time. Deer smell your breath and other odors are of less concern. We all need to practice holding our breath

One more thing I need to practice more, for hunting in close quarters, is holding my breath for as long as possible.

 

[Nhoro]

I have been using a beeswax based polish-dont know the brand on my belts and leather slings etc. I used the polish that comes with Courtney boots-also a beeswax polish. But for more than 20 years I used parafin wax shoe polish. I dont see much difference in performance, I end up wearing them out just the same but I read that natural wax is better. I have just bought some beeswax and i am going to try and make my own polish. I am going to mix it with either olive oil or coconut oil to soften the wax for application and see how that goes. It smells better in any case. I would rather walk around smelling like honey and coconuts than parafin wax anyway. Just remains to be seen if the bees like it too.

 

[neilw]

Here is my recipe that I use on my leather goods:

Ingredient	Weight
Dales Neatsfoot Oil	45 g (≈ 50 ml)
Lanolin (Anhydrous or Medical-Grade)	25 g (≈ 25 ml)
Pure Beeswax	20 g (≈ 20 ml melted)
Essential Oil (Cedarwood) [Optional]	<1 ml (≈10 drops)

You can swop out the Neatsfoot oil is you want to avoid darkening the leather. Something like Jojoba Oil or Liquid Paraffin

 

[JG26Irish_2]

You got me thinking about buying a Mercedes-Benz or Rolls Royce. There ... I'm done thinking. My city's streets would destroy them. Last spring someone stuck a nicely painted sign one one of the road crew's countless orange cones that seem to have found a permanent home adorning our main drag: "Beware! Tank Traps Ahead"

I'd like to try this stuff. Is there any way to purchase some without buying a car?

LOL - the hide food product is available in the USA via Amazon and some auto supply stores. Since I have only purchased the one container over a 20ish year time period, I have not done so lately. As I recall, I bought it at the Benz dealer. I cannot say of sources in Canada, but Amazon did have it available. I think it may be sold under the Connoly brand name as well. Good luck.

BTW - While I have no experience with Rolls Royce, but my current Merc SUV ist die Panzerwagon and is more than up to the challenge of tank traps and other highway and off-road obstacles. Nonetheless, I still prefer the Toyota FJ Cruiser for my hunting excursions as it is also more tank-like than most 4x4's/