Upholstery leather cleaning. Leather Furniture Color Restoration. St Louis Leather Repair.
Leather furniture is a great investment that can last for decades upon decades in your home, but what do you do when it begins to start looking as old as it is? The color can be the only element that doesn't last as long as the furniture itself. Leather furniture color repair is the answer that perhaps you didn't even know you were looking for!
Understanding How leather is Processed to Make Furniture
The Tanning Process
Leather Furniture is carefully crafted out of organic materials, like leather and wood, to form the beautiful furniture you now enjoy. In order to understand how leather furniture gets the color it has, then you have to understand how it is made. Once you can see how leather gets its color and protection, it is much easier to see that you can restore leather color damage with leather furniture dye and leather color restoration, therefore adding years of value and longevity to your leather furniture!
Leather, as we know, is a skin, the skin of a cow, that has been dyed stretched and sewn together to form your leather furniture: it is the cushions, pillows and all other areas of your leather furniture. This skin is called a Hide, and for a full sized or sectional leather furniture piece, it can take one entire hide or even two or three to form the entire leather sofa. The hide is then dyed into the color of the furniture, which is done in a process called Tanning. Tanning can take several days or even weeks and months to complete the process. The entire hide is saturated then soaked with the leather dye in a large vat with several other hides. Depending on the hue, or color, of the leather, it make soak for just a few days or for dark and deeper hues, it make soak for weeks and months. Special machines turn the hides within the drums full of dye, to make sure the leather moves around during the process to be evenly colored. Leather that has been tanned is more resilient and durable to damage, wearing thin, staining, sweat and spills, etc, than untouched, natural leather. Think of each layer of dye, color and top coat as an added thin layer of skin that protects the leather a little bit better from daily use.
Once the hides have soaked for their allotted time, the drums are drained and the hides are stretched out flat and smooth to be dried. Once fully dry, a protective and sealing top coat is applied to the hide. Top coat is most often clear so as not change or alter the color of the tanned leather. Top coat helps seal the leather dye, as well as prevent exterior elements from causing damage to the leather, like spills or stains, even helping to protect the leather from sweat. Different types of leather will require different types of top coat, and not all leather furniture is created equally, that is, there are varying grades and types of leather that are used, which can also influence the life cycle of your leather furniture. Be sure that you are purchasing true, high quality leather furniture so that it lasts. As I said before, the type of top coat that is applied to your leather after it is tanned is very important. Top coat is the last step in the tanning process for the leather hide before it travels on in its journey, to be made into leather furniture.
The leather furniture making facility will cut the freshly dyed and tanned hide into the appropriate size shapes and pieces to be sewn together to form the cushions and other areas of the leather furniture. Once the furniture is complete it travels to the show rooms to be sold to you and I, but it is not treated again with top coat or any other protection.
Just because your leather starts to show signs of age, That Doesn't mean it is Done For
Leather Furniture Dye can revitalize Leather at any stage of age!
After you have purchased and begun to enjoy your leather furniture, you may start to see the inevitable signs of damage associated with every day use, like fading, sweat stains, oil stains, texture changes, sun spots and other kinds of color loss. Most people think that once this occurs that this is the end of the road for their leather! I want you to know that that is not true! Leather color repair is the secret antidote to all leather color loss, and can even be used for leather boots, shoes, jackets, briefcases or luggage, and more! As long as it is leather, it can be leather color repaired. Leather color repair not only will refresh the look of your leather furniture and goods but it will add years to your leather's life!
Leather color repair uses the same professional grade leather dye that is like what is used in the tanning process, but it is a smaller scale version. Leather furniture dye is made when a leather repair professional matches the exact color of your leather furniture or leather goods using pure color pigments in a water based dye. That's right, leather color repair uses leather DYE. Many of the do it your self or as seen on t.v. leather color repair kits are using paint, which is why the results are so poor. Paint does not adhere to organic materials, like if you get your face painted, the paint flakes away, peeling off the smooth finished look as well as losing that recently applied color.
The true way is done by using our dye, which can be applied by sponge application or by being airbrushed on to the leather. Both applications will achieve a wonderful result. Leather furniture color repair is done to match your leather's exact color, and the dye is made on-site by skilled Leather Repair Technician's.
