So I thought about posting this bag in the "secondhand" thread because she barely qualifies as a rehab, but since we are always debating "to dunk or not to dunk" our red bags I thought I'd show her here.
I got this cute little red Trail Bag on eBay for $16. I work at a university, which is also my alma mater, and our school color is red. I had to work an event last weekend and I ended up carrying my little lime green Emmie Flap, but I kinda wished I had a small red bag to match the grey & red T-Shirt I had to wear. I've got a big red Stewardess, and my "TrashCan" red spectator City bag, (who has yet to make her public debut), but nothing small.
She was a little dirty, flat, and her piping was a little worn, but over all looked pretty good when I got her last night. Unfortunately her full body shot didn't come out when I uploaded it, so all I have are a couple of detailed "before" shots to show her condition:
Piping:
Dirty Pockets:
I vacuumed her out and dunked her. The pockets were really dirty, but the outside of the bag was pretty clean. I did some stuff after work last night and didn't get home til close to 9PM, but I was impatient and since she didn't need much I wanted to get her started!
Here she is in her rinse water. I washed her with dish soap, drained it, then rinsed with running water, then filled up the sink again and let her soak in some clean water too. It just seems like it's the best way to tell if all the soap is out. Her soapy water was only slightly more "pink" than this water, but you can see it in this picture better:
Hanging on the faucet to drip a little:
Here she is the next morning. This is like, the "honeymoon" stage of bag dunking...almost dry, the leather looks nice and dark & pretty. I have noticed, however, that light color bags look worse at this stage because the leather color shows through the "white" and makes the bag look scary dirty
Here she is a couple of hours after one coat of Leather CPR. Dunking seems to have "refreshed" the faded piping. I probably will do a coat of Black Rocks on her, but I wanted a before picture so that you can see that the bath did her no damage. I know a few of you have had issues with red bags, but I think the glove tanned bags are pretty safe to dunk:
The red on this bag is still pretty vibrant, I don't expect that the Black Rocks will make it look any different after it soaks in. She doesn't have a hang tag, but I plan to wander over to the school bookstore one of these days to see if I can find a cute little university themed key chain or something to add. She's going to get to go to some football & basketball games and other school events.
