Terrible Chemical Smell

[Martha Koenig]

Hello everyone,

i just received my newest shipment of leather. But it has a terrible, chemical smell to it that my previous shipments of the same leather did not have. It makes me dizzy and sticks to the appartment. I had stored it in our stairwell over night and the whole stairwell started to stink! Not I've put it into a gardenshed.

Does anyone know if i can get rid of that smell? I really want to use that leather but i dont want to poison myself ...

Otherwise I will have to send it back and i havent found a possible replacement yet. Since i might need to send it back i also cant use any drastic ways of smellremoval.

Please help or tell me if you have encountered this sort of problem before.

Thanks in advance

Martha

[Northmount]

Have had a similar problem with veg tan. Scrubbed it with saddle soap, bleached with oxalic acid, smell is gone. Surface colour was inconsistent so that was why I bleached it, but it does help with the smell too.

Tom

[Redochre]

I had the same problem with a shoulder I had from metropolitan.... It stunk my flat out.

I found that airing the shoulder out helped considerably but did no fully remove the smell.

I did find along with the smell it just wasn't very nice to work with.

Have you contacted your supplier?

[TomG]

I had a side of Chrome tan like that once. I had a horrible cold at the time, but when I got it home, my wife almost threw up it was so bad. Took it back to Tandy and they exchanged it. Got one of the same sides and it (and the others) didn;t have the smell.

I always figured it just didn't get rinsed properly at the tannery.

[Martha Koenig]

Its a shame, but after several days of airing it out it smells just as bad as before ... I guess its just one of those cases of bad leather i read about on the internet. And that after i figured veg tan would be a "safe bet"

Thank you anyway for trying to help. Ill contact my supplier and send it back.