Scenting Leather?

[c4ck4]

I've been pondering this for a while but haven't tried it. Because leather is very porous and in many cases we're soaking some form of oil into the leather anyway, I was wondering if anybody has tried to give the leather a lasting scent. I've been considering adding scent to a piece using essential oils but I know some of them are fairly strong and I'm not sure how they might effect the leather. Also I'm curious if the smell would last long enough to be worth it anyway.

I'd like to hear any comments if anybody has tried it. If not I think I'll give it a shot.

[ramrod]

it's a novel idea and it might work. i'm not sure what a concentration of oil would do to the leather, though.

i, for one, just want that smell of nothing but leather. lol

[c4ck4]

I also greatly appreciate the straight smell of leather very much but I can see a buyer perhaps being interested in this.

[wildrose]

I make leather roses, and I had another vendor give me rose oil at an event, saying to me that maybe I'd want to scent the roses. I never have. People always tell me how much they love the smell of leather, so why change it?

[Mokosh]

Cool idea. But I'd recommend doing a lot of research if you haven't already because you have to be super cautious with a lot of essential oils . For example, certain types of bergamot can cause permanent discoloration on people skin and I imagine that would translate to cowhide as well. Certain ones are very dangerous to pregnant women because they act as emmenagogues.

[Turkish Gambit]

I've been pondering this for a while but haven't tried it. Because leather is very porous and in many cases we're soaking some form of oil into the leather anyway, I was wondering if anybody has tried to give the leather a lasting scent. I've been considering adding scent to a piece using essential oils but I know some of them are fairly strong and I'm not sure how they might effect the leather. Also I'm curious if the smell would last long enough to be worth it anyway.

I'd like to hear any comments if anybody has tried it. If not I think I'll give it a shot.

I've been wondering about the same thing, so I ran a little test. Here are the items I've used:

1. Test patch of leather.

2. Home brew recipe for wax finish I found on this forum (ratio of 1:1:1 by weight -- neatsfoot oil, beeswax, and parafin) -- darkens the leather noticibly.

3. Heater (foot warmer, or blow drier)

4. Imported fragrances oil perfumes from India (Golden sandalwood, amber liquid) -- these are real perfumes for use, bought at a local store, not essential oils.

The salesman at the store mentioned the fragrance will loose its smell if exposed to extreeme heat, so during this process I tried to use moderate to low heat.

Here is what I did:

Put a little home brewed wax on leather patch with my fingers, to help it warm up. Added a little heat to and spread it well around the area, still using my fingers. When the wax was spread evenly, I added 5-6 drops of perfume on the wax, and began to mix perfume into it. Next, I interchanged heat with spreading the wax. When you add heat, some wax will be absorbed into the leather, then you have to spread the remaining of wax evenly again. So heat, and spread, heat and spread. After all absorbed, let cool, and polish with soft cloth.

Here are the results:

The leather is sealed very well, waterproof. You can test it by letting dropplets of water sit on it for a while, and checking for dark spots. So the perfume oil is mixed with wax, and this is why you can smell it. Logically, If adding oil perfume on leather, then sealing it -- would seal the smell of perfume too. Also, these perfume oils definitely darken the leather tremendously, so I would guess any oil would, even essential oils. Hence, mixed with the wax, not directly on the leather. The smell of sandalwood on leather is nice, but in my test, 5-6 drops of perfume was too much on a 3x3 inches strip of leather. I'm planing on putting a scented piece of lether on the purse, and definitely will be using half of the amount of perfume. Also, a thing to to consider perfumed leather not interjecting with the person's perfume.

[c4ck4]

Thanks for the perspectives and warnings and the results especially. I had actually forgotten all about this after I posted it.

Mixing it with the sealant actually makes a lot of sense. I suppose if you really got into it you could mix little blocks of the wax+oil ahead of time and keep them labeled by scent. I've been away from leather for a few months, working on other stuff instead. I'll keep this info in the back of my head, as I'm sure at some point in the future I'll want to try this again.