I think I will just stick with some dedicated Ph balanced leather cleaners and save up for a steamer.
JB's little leather test -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I found myself with a lot of products for leather/vinyl cleaning and decided on trying a experiment. I wanted to find the best cleaner, cost effective, and safe. The car - my mom's 20 year old Caddie. I don't know if it's ever been cleaned in the 10 years she's had it. The products - Woolite 8:1, Majestic Solutions Tidal Wave 8:1, Lexol, 1Z and Meg's Detailers Leather Cleaner/Conditioner. The test: I cleaned 5 buckets and filled each with the same amount of hot water, 5 clean white terry cloth towels, measureed off and taped 5 sections of the back seat. I used each product in the same manner, sprayed the same amount on the towel, scrubed and rinsed the same number of times. Results: Woolite 8:1 was the best cleaner by far. I bumped Tidal Wave to 6:1 and then 4:1 before it could hang with it. Lexol was the soapiest, cleaned ok and would have been acceptable if I hadn't seen how woolite and TW pulled out more dirt. The other two - 1Z and Megs are AIO types and they didn't clean as good. I ended up going over the whole seat again with just Woolite and it cleaned more dirt out of the other sections. I tried AutoMagics Heavy Duty Cleaner #713 at 5:1, well above what the directions called for but ok per a good friend - Mr. Fermani, it did good, but the woolite did as well, and after wiping over an area on the front seat with #713, I rinsed and tried one swipe with woolite and it pulled more dirt out. The buckets I used for rinsing all sat for a hour after I was done, the woolite bucket had by far the dirtiest water, Lexol the soapiest, 1Z was murky, Meg's was fairly clean with a film on top, Tidal Wave & AM #713 were dirty, but not as dark as the woolite bucket of water. After cleaning, the seats were like new, and I didn't feel any sticky residue. Of course I always do about 2 rinse cycles after a scrub with the products. I had Lexol Conditioner and the Zaino version - used both per directions. Zaino was easier to apply and smelled better, but after wiping down the Lexol with a clean dry towel and letting the car sit while I washed the exterior - I couldn't tell the Lexol from the Zaino-looks wise. Conclusions: Woolite 8:1 is the best for dirty leather/leathette/vinyl or pleather Meg's Cleaner and Conditioner smelled good and would be the go to for light cleaning and maintaining Tidal Wave and AM - since I've used TW as high as full strength on a Jeep's interior that spent too many years topless - I'll use that more on vinyl - plastic. AM - not sure, maybe my next engine cleaner - future test. 1Z - not bad, but pricey Zaino - love the smell, reserved for the wife's Highlander I know there are some very well known and respected detailers that will swear that woolite isn't good, will cause harm -yada yada. But, I've spoke to a couple that have used it longer than me, on many more cars and haven't had any issues. Why? I think it's simple, after you get a cess pool like I had to clean up - clean, then you don't need woolite to maintain it, Megs or 1z if you got deep pockets will work. It's like this - M105 will correct your paint 99.9% of the time right? Do you need to use it every 3-4 months ? - God, I hope not! Ya'll take care, my old shoulders are aching from cleaning that beast, and I need to relax a bit. BTW - that was a freebie so I'm wore out and still broke!
I have had great results with the Leather Master trio. Easy to use, kind of a time intensive application, but I do other things while waiting between steps.
The MSDS sheet for Woolite He only means 3 items: Sodium Hyroxide (<2%), Alcohol Ethoxyolate (3 to 5%, and Alkylbenzene Sulfonic Acid (8-12%). The regular version of Woolite mentions Sodium Laureth Sulfate (found in shampoos, toothpastes) but no Alcohol Ethoxolate.
