I have some light-colored suede bags in my rehab pile so I will interested to see how your pink bags come out with the emu oil.
Coach Rehab and Rescue Club
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I have some light-colored suede bags in my rehab pile so I will interested to see how your pink bags come out with the emu oil.
Thank you! For now I've just left them out laying on a towel. I can tell this will be addicting! I'm really glad I washed my bag, because an odor that wasn't present when it was dry presented itself. Luckily the bag doesn't smell anymore, but my hands do. Yuck
Arrange the strap nicely as the bag dries on the towel, so it doesn't dry with kinks or in a weird shape.
Question on dye loss - how much is normal?
Experienced rehabbers, I need your input on my ongoing attempt with a black Legacy Zip. After a bath with Dawn liquid, it dried with paper towels and I just finished the second round of Leather CPR absorbing, working it through the finished leather surfaces (Legacy Zip has a lot of 'em!) and gentle buffing. There are black and gray stains on my cleaning rags - not copious amounts, but some, particularly where I buff on the inside where the finished leather inner base meets the suede walls of the bag. The TPF phone app is still down for maintenance so I am not able to post my pictures easily.
I am going to let the leather rest another 24 hours and then do Blackrock little by little. I am antsy about using this bag if there is going to be dye rubbing off on my purse contents - I had that happen once before.
Also, how can I tell if a bag has been re-dyed? Would there be a lot of dye loss in the bath (which there wasn't)? I ask because certain areas of this bag feel rougher than others, but the color is rich and almost completely even. Even the piping looks dark all the way around, but feels rougher in some spots. Thank you!
Experienced rehabbers, I need your input on my ongoing attempt with a black Legacy Zip. After a bath with Dawn liquid, it dried with paper towels and I just finished the second round of Leather CPR absorbing, working it through the finished leather surfaces (Legacy Zip has a lot of 'em!) and gentle buffing. There are black and gray stains on my cleaning rags - not copious amounts, but some, particularly where I buff on the inside where the finished leather inner base meets the suede walls of the bag. The TPF phone app is still down for maintenance so I am not able to post my pictures easily.
I am going to let the leather rest another 24 hours and then do Blackrock little by little. I am antsy about using this bag if there is going to be dye rubbing off on my purse contents - I had that happen once before.
Also, how can I tell if a bag has been re-dyed? Would there be a lot of dye loss in the bath (which there wasn't)? I ask because certain areas of this bag feel rougher than others, but the color is rich and almost completely even. Even the piping looks dark all the way around, but feels rougher in some spots. Thank you!
Just gave a bath to my first rehab! I had to take a deep breathe and then just plunge it in the sink, no turning back. I was amazed at how well it took the water. Now it's draining in the sink waiting to be stuffed with towels. Any advice on what to do with the long strap? Should I just leave it out or try to wrap it in a towel?
Before pics with and without helpful cat:
I just leave it out. I make sure it isn't kinked or twisted.
Thanks katev and whateve! It's lying flat on a table for now, all nice and smooth.
It is normal to have some dye come off when wet. I've not had any problems with color transfer after dry. I do believe that Blackrocks will help as a sort of sealant since it does have a leather safe form of wax content. That's why we like to use it last most of the time.
I accidentally posted this comment first over in the Second Hand Bargain thread. I couldn't figure out how to delete it so I hope it's ok to post the same thing in both places...
I have a good news bad news situation and was wondering if anyone can help. So the good news is that I found this amazing red city bag for $7.50!!!! I'm so excited because I don't have any red bags and this one is such a great size for me. The bad news is that someone seems to have attacked it with ink.What's with old Coach bags and ink by the way???? Given the cheap price I bought it anyway and plan to do my best rehabbing it. Obviously, the ink won't come out all the way so I am planning to touch it up with red paint.
I was wondering if anyone has touched up this type of bag before. I have experience painting the corners of a black bag and a brown bag. In both cases, the end results were amazing. Red seems a little more difficult so I thought I'd come to the experts!
What kind of paint did you use? Is acrylic glossy the correct paint? If by some miracle anyone happens to know a specific brand or color that would be a good starting point, I would be grateful.
Thanks!
I agree. I have a red bag with similar ink explosion issues that I will be eventually buying some wood n stuff refinish for. I keep putting it off since it's the only red bag like this that I have. I've purposely avoided buying this type of rehab lately unless I find a bag that is an absolute HG bag and it's super cheap at the thrift shop.
Hi Ladies - i did a search of this thread "storing bags" but only got posts about restoring bags!How do you all store your bags - stuffed or unstuffed? with pillowcases if you don't have dustbags? sstanding up side by side or is on top of each okay if you have to? Thanks!!
Storage room is a problem at my house. I stuff mine with off season clothes (so right now, most are full of t shirts ) But all the gazillions of plastic shopping bags you get from the store can be used too. I hear paper stuffing isn't the ideal choice. I guess that depends on where you live, etc. something to do with the paper can attract certain insects or something, moths? dunno. I then put them in dustbags if I have them, or old pillow cases. If they have drawstring closures to hang them by, I hang the dust bags full of purses on those multi hooked robe hangers that can hang attach over the tops of your doors. So, most of the bedroom doors in my house have purses overflowing off the back of them LOL. if you do an internet google search on this, you'll get LOTS of neat ideas.
Ladies!! Lookey Lookey what I have found - an original Bonnie Cashin Body Bag in red!
Now, here's where you come in, I saw somewhere, I believe between Katev and DemRam that the older Cashin's need additional love when rehabbing? Is that true, something about dry and cracked leather? As you can see, there is no damage, unlike my first body bag, which was a re-make. I want to dunk for smell and just to give it some love, suggestions!
I hope my images upload and BTW, I visited the UCLA Archives and this lovely bag was drawn in Red with Bonnie's notes on it.
http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0002xmkr
beautiful!!
Any suggestions on how to get the softness back on my rehabbed bag....smoke smell isn't gone, but finally at an acceptable level, and its still in the drying stage. Its a 98 equestrian bag, so its (i guess) supposed to be a stiff leather. It looks a lot like the archival duffle, but its SOOO stiff now, i kinda don't like it. i like coach for the soft leather and this bag feels like a saddle (ha ha since its equestrian
I think that's one of the reasons I just use Leather Therapy wash, and Lexol cleaner in my dunking process. I've had a couple of bags come out stiff even when I rinsed them a lot, usually on the dirtiest light color bags that I was extra aggressive with using Dawn, Shout, etc. !! I think the emu oil and similar products might your best bet. It will be a structured bag, but it should have a softness to it too.
I have had dye leach onto the white bags from the leather in the handles. I think on some, the leather used on the trim and handles might have been an unfinished "vachetta" and I had some issues with dye run off but I got it to work out ok. Others have had better luck. If the white is in bad shape and you have nothing to lose by washing it, it does make a world of difference. I have some photos somewhere way back on this thread about this process I ran into. Here is the bag after being washed in the washing machine (inside a pillow case) :
I'll see if I can find the afters somewhere.
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Afters: I had to use a Tide to Go pen and a white clean absorbent cloth and constantly saturate and wick the dye run off over and over again til I got it mostly fixed up and it looked much better when done. Photos look more "white and perfect" than the bag was IRL tho'. But a definite improvement for sure
I happen to REALLY love them 
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