Rejuventating, Repairing or Restoring Your Balenciaga

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#1,471
octoberrrush said:
I'm pretty sure this bag has never been conditioned prior to coming to me - or maybe once in its lifetime. The leather was soooo dry although it didn't look like it. Soaked up the conditioner like a sponge!
This bag has lived a full life but the leather is still smooshy with the original glaze - the worst wear is on the handles ; softest bal handles I've owned, still getting my head around it, patina which is fine, the edges have cracked and seems to have been glued back with leather glue which is fine. Tassels have been glued together as well. Overall uneven fading - I'll have to carry this "backwards" once in a while. 2005 Magenta is such a spectacular colour, I just get so lost in the deep pink purple smoosh! My HG colour and now i own 2!
Kept the lighting the same in the comparison pics. I only used Apple Garde Conditioner, a microfiber towel, some qtips & toothpicks for the hard to reach spots.
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Looks good! Do you recommend conditioning the bags if they’re feeling dry?
 
#1,472
lilapot said:
Sorry if this has been posted or asked already but does anyone have tips on how to clean a Bal graffiti? Do you clean the print with Applegard or do you clean it the same way you would any other Bal bags with no print? Just worried the prints will come off if I put something on it? 🥹😭 Thank you!
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I've used Leather CPR on mine with no problem. I don't think you have to worry with any good cleaner/moisturizer. It's a quality bag.
 
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#1,476
Hi everyone! any tips on how to care/clean/condition the metallic leathers? I use Cadillac conditioner on my bags just not sure about metallic leather? do I treat it the same? anyone use apple guard spray on the metallic leather?
 
#1,481
Princeofterpine said:
Weekender update! All cleaned up with some Saphir Nappa cleaner. Next up Leather CPR to condition

Before:View attachment 6178950View attachment 6178951View attachment 6178952View attachment 6178953

After:

View attachment 6178954View attachment 6178959View attachment 6178960View attachment 6178961

B/A:


View attachment 6178966
View attachment 6178967
Click to expand...
WOW! Great job cleaning and conditioning! please list all the products you used and please tell how you used them!
 
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#1,482
Galittlewave said:
WOW! Great job cleaning and conditioning! please list all the products you used and please tell how you used them!
Click to expand...
Thank you! Happy to share. As I have some of the worst ADD- no directions were followed 😂. It’s also the reason I like to write essays.. so if you want to skip to the instructions, scroll down to “in a nutshell”

A bit of background information: I only used Saphir Renovateur Nappa for this job. It was the only Saphir product that I could find listed as safe to use on untreated leathers like nappa, goat, and even some exotics; it contains jojoba oil.
IMG_3100.webpI was looking at one other Saphir product called Delicate Cream which they claim “is a specially-formulated cream for very delicate leathers, such as fine smooth leather, nappa, and box calf leather. The cream nourishes and revitalizes the leather but contains a low wax content. This is the conditioner that some of the world's most famous, luxury handbag makers uses for their handbags.” While that sounds like exactly what I needed, all of the leathers they listed are usually not ultra treated BUT it didn’t mention that it was safe for untreated leather so I played it safe & stuck with the Renovateur Nappa. As you can tell from the photos, it did a fantastic job but I’m still not positive that it was the proper Saphir product for the job. I might try the Delicate Cream next time now that I’m not as scared to put product on the leather. Online it recommended to do a little test to see if your leather is treated or not-
IMG_3101.webp This did not leave any sort of mark on the bags leather but with “Plein fleur Aniline” on the tags I wasn’t going to take any chances & proceeded with Saphir Renovateur Nappa

HERE IS WHERE THE CLEANING STARTED:
These are the Saphir Instructions, but take note of the minor tweaks I made.
IMG_3102.webp


Step 1. Used a dry microfiber cloth to get any surface dirt/debris off the bag.

Step 2 was to apply the cream and let it sit for 5 minutes. This seemed strange because it would practically fully absorb into the leather within 5 minutes leading to an uneven saturation of cream and there was no way to to evenly coat the leather —so I did a patch test on an area inside the bag and noticed that doing this would actually leave big uneven “oil stain looking spots” there is definitely a good chance that the spots could fully dry and disappear, but I was not going to risk it. So instead for

Step 2: I put some cream on a microfiber towel and just started gently rubbing it into the bag, one area at a time. Rubbing the cream into the leather just like I’ve seen leather CPR used in videos. When applying it like this it actually seemed to work like LCPR (I’ve never used it but have watched videos) I could see that the cream was that the cream picking up any leftover attached dirt/grime and the coloractually got a little dark and dirty looking before fully absorbing into the bag. I couldn’t imagine just letting the cream soak into the dirty leather for 5 minutes. Then think this instruction may work better for a box leather bag. Surprisingly even though the cream went from white to brown & dirty, the bag was starting to clean up really quickly.
Step 3: I let the bag air dry for about 30 minutes. The color of the leather lightened right back up to where it started (leaving no trace of cream or any sort of damp looking oil spots)

In a nutshell: I got impatient with the written instructions & they didn’t make total sense to me, so I used it just like I’ve seen other people use leather CPR. I’m not exactly sure how much Saphir product it should have taken to clean the weekender but it ended up using the entire 75ml jar. With just a couple little dabs left to treat a handle or something. I would like to try the Saphir Delicate cream but due to the cost and amount of product required, I think I’ll try LCPR since it seems to be what everyone else uses and has great results with.

I would love to know if anyone has any tips for helping to increase color saturation on dry chèvre leather without using dye or paint- essentially just moisturizing and getting the color a a little darker WITHOUT the color going right back to normal after drying. I feel like the Saphir Renovateur Nappa was great for cleaning but didn’t do much to actually moisturize the dry leather.. maybe Leather CPR? Lol
 
#1,483
Princeofterpine said:
Thank you! Happy to share. As I have some of the worst ADD- no directions were followed 😂. It’s also the reason I like to write essays.. so if you want to skip to the instructions, scroll down to “in a nutshell”

A bit of background information: I only used Saphir Renovateur Nappa for this job. It was the only Saphir product that I could find listed as safe to use on untreated leathers like nappa, goat, and even some exotics; it contains jojoba oil.
View attachment 6181977I was looking at one other Saphir product called Delicate Cream which they claim “is a specially-formulated cream for very delicate leathers, such as fine smooth leather, nappa, and box calf leather. The cream nourishes and revitalizes the leather but contains a low wax content. This is the conditioner that some of the world's most famous, luxury handbag makers uses for their handbags.” While that sounds like exactly what I needed, all of the leathers they listed are usually not ultra treated BUT it didn’t mention that it was safe for untreated leather so I played it safe & stuck with the Renovateur Nappa. As you can tell from the photos, it did a fantastic job but I’m still not positive that it was the proper Saphir product for the job. I might try the Delicate Cream next time now that I’m not as scared to put product on the leather. Online it recommended to do a little test to see if your leather is treated or not-
View attachment 6181978 This did not leave any sort of mark on the bags leather but with “Plein fleur Aniline” on the tags I wasn’t going to take any chances & proceeded with Saphir Renovateur Nappa

HERE IS WHERE THE CLEANING STARTED:
These are the Saphir Instructions, but take note of the minor tweaks I made.
View attachment 6181979


Step 1. Used a dry microfiber cloth to get any surface dirt/debris off the bag.

Step 2 was to apply the cream and let it sit for 5 minutes. This seemed strange because it would practically fully absorb into the leather within 5 minutes leading to an uneven saturation of cream and there was no way to to evenly coat the leather —so I did a patch test on an area inside the bag and noticed that doing this would actually leave big uneven “oil stain looking spots” there is definitely a good chance that the spots could fully dry and disappear, but I was not going to risk it. So instead for

Step 2: I put some cream on a microfiber towel and just started gently rubbing it into the bag, one area at a time. Rubbing the cream into the leather just like I’ve seen leather CPR used in videos. When applying it like this it actually seemed to work like LCPR (I’ve never used it but have watched videos) I could see that the cream was that the cream picking up any leftover attached dirt/grime and the coloractually got a little dark and dirty looking before fully absorbing into the bag. I couldn’t imagine just letting the cream soak into the dirty leather for 5 minutes. Then think this instruction may work better for a box leather bag. Surprisingly even though the cream went from white to brown & dirty, the bag was starting to clean up really quickly.
Step 3: I let the bag air dry for about 30 minutes. The color of the leather lightened right back up to where it started (leaving no trace of cream or any sort of damp looking oil spots)

In a nutshell: I got impatient with the written instructions & they didn’t make total sense to me, so I used it just like I’ve seen other people use leather CPR. I’m not exactly sure how much Saphir product it should have taken to clean the weekender but it ended up using the entire 75ml jar. With just a couple little dabs left to treat a handle or something. I would like to try the Saphir Delicate cream but due to the cost and amount of product required, I think I’ll try LCPR since it seems to be what everyone else uses and has great results with.

I would love to know if anyone has any tips for helping to increase color saturation on dry chèvre leather without using dye or paint- essentially just moisturizing and getting the color a a little darker WITHOUT the color going right back to normal after drying. I feel like the Saphir Renovateur Nappa was great for cleaning but didn’t do much to actually moisturize the dry leather.. maybe Leather CPR? Lol
Click to expand...


Maybe this could help with color and moisture?
 
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