Colour LossColour loss on leather furniture is very common there can be a number of reasons for colour loss to appear, poorly finished in manufacturing, non maintenance, non cleaning or just using the incorrect products. Everything requires maintenance and a very simple steps throughout the year can prevent such damage.Today we we called to clean and restore various areas on the leather sofa that had colour loss, below is a before picture of one of the areas we restored.

This area was on the 3str sofa on the inside back where the head sits on the sofa. The sofa was five years old and today had not had any cleaning or renovation work undertaken, so over the years these areas have built up dirt and grime from day to day dust which builds up and sit in to the leather. When the leather pours get filled with dirt the leather finds itself hard to breath which then causes the pigment to start to peel causing colour loss.We start by cleaning the leather surface we are about to repair, this area shown was cleaned thee times to remove the build up of dirt and grime, if the area is not cleaned through thoroughly then the repairs will not hold, some repair companies do quote very cheap prices but skip some of the process so just be sure what you are getting.Once the area has been cleaned we use a leather solvent cleaner to remove the manufactures finish this again helps with the adhesion of the repairs, when using a solvent cleaner you have to be sure to clean panel to panel and only lightly wipe the areas do not apply huge amounts of pressure as this can cause further damage to the leather.The area is now fully cleaned for the repair process to start, we lightly sand the using a 400 grit sand paper this gives a keying edge for the leather dye to adhere to, very lightly over the areas that are being repaired.This is when the magic happens, we start applying the leather dye up in thin layers drying each layer using a hair dryer making sure each area is fully cured before applying the next coat. Some colours will take more coats than others its all colour dependant, as you are building up the colours being sure that the colour of the dye does not change sometimes the more coats you apply the colour then changes if this happens the colour would need to be adjusted.The repair now looks perfect now we apply three coats of leather sealant to seal in all of our good work.

Colour MixingColour mixing is a skill which can only be learnt over years and years of training, there are companies with colour mixing machines, some companies come and get a sample of the leather and send it of for mixing. We mix all our colour on site by eye for a perfect repair.