so today we're going to go over some leather care tips and tricks we're going to show you how to take care of your leather and we're going to clean up this vintage 1972 600 mercedes has some vintage leather it's a little bit dirty want to show you tips and tricks on how to care for your leather and make sure it comes out right so let's hop in this mercedes and show you exactly how to take care of any leather surface so today we're going to show you how to take care of some leather we have this beautiful immaculate 1972 mercedes-benz 600 grocer now this is a classic limousine driven by emperors and ambassadors and kings and queens all around the world this is a classic car when mercedes-benz built it they strive to build the most amazing car with no expenses spared the whole inside of this car is vintage original leather and it's not like cleaning a newer car where the leather is sealed this is a natural leather we're going to show you some tips and tricks to cleaning sensitive leather goods so if you have a classic car or even a new car or bags or sensitive leather that's precious you're going to go ahead and clean it sensitively with the proper product so let's grab some products and show you exactly how to do that now inside this car is a beautiful brown leather the whole car is leather we have leather on the seats the leather on the back of the seats the dash the headrest every part of the car is leather and it needs cleaning and conditioning this leather has gotten kind of old and there's dirt and debris that started to uh sit inside the cracks of the natural leather hide so we're going to try to clean this out we need to be extra sensitive when cleaning this to make sure that we don't harm the surface so first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to grab my chemical guys extreme leather cleaner it's 100 ph balance and it's going to be safe on any leather surface now the extreme leather cleaner is actually diluted six to one in a professional bottle so i got it all ready to go our leather cleaner comes full strength so we can easily go ahead and dilute it to get six bottles out of one so i took a professional bottle diluted it down now we're ready to start cleaning i'm also going to grab a few yellow microfibers now i picked yellow microfibers to do this leather cleaning with because if i clean it and i clean too much i'll know that the leather color is coming off on my towel but we're going to see a lot of dirt on this towel so it's going to get really dirty so to clean this leather i'm also going to use some brushes so i'm going to actually use one of our goat brushes this is our goat brush it's plastic brush with a plastic tip so if it bumps any type of surface it's not going to harm it like a metal brush it also has a nice soft boar's hair head so it's going to actually clean the surface gently and get all the dirt out of the pores i also have another one of our little pito brushes is a little pipo brush it's going to help me get down all the cracks and crevices a little better to help me clean out any debris as well so let's get started now when you first clean leather you want to go ahead and remove all the dirt and debris before conditioning so to do that i'm going to take my leather cleaner and i'm going to take a microfiber towel a lot of people might take a brush and scrub the leather i don't like to do that especially on leather this sensitive if i were to harm this leather i would never be able to get an original because this car is so uh rare and it's unrestored if you're cleaning leather you also might want to move the back seat a little bit this car actually has reclinable back seats so if you're in your limousine you can recline it back and i reclined it back a little bit so i can get in a little bit tighter spots and make sure that i clean the surface just right now i'm going to take my microfiber towel and i'm going to spray the microfiber towel with our leather cleaner now once we have the leather cleaner sprayed on the microfiber towel i'm going to start cleaning now i want to go ahead and gently clean the surface cleaning leather is a long process it doesn't go by quick because we want to make sure that we clean the surface very sensitive a lot of the leather is actually starting to crack and i don't want to pull the leather very hard and start cracking it even more than it already is now look at the dirt that we're taking off the leather this is a good 40 years of dirt the person who owns this car takes really good care of it but no matter what you do leather is a natural hide and it's going to get dirty now i'm going to go ahead and start cleaning other parts this leather let's move it around we want to be very sensitive when cleaning our leather we're going to be focusing on this area on the end today because this whole inside is going to take me a few hours to clean all the leather but you notice the leather on this side is already getting real clean we're starting to bring back the rich color of the leather and it's starting to look natural now look at the dirt that we've pulled off this is dirt on the leather that's body oils that's dirt it's years of an ambassador sitting on this back seat riding around so i'm going to flip over my towel to a clean side and start again spray a few sprays on my towel and let's start working it i like to work in a light circular motion when i clean leather and i'm not scrubbing very hard i'm using a gentle force it's really what we want to use on this leather now this leather is old it's not going to get 100 clean like a brand new car because the leather discolors over time natural leather will discolor it turns a natural warm color and a lot of people like it that's why a lot of people collect vintage cars spray a little bit more mic we'll spray a little bit more leather cleaner on our towel we'll start cleaning the surfaces now if you encounter an area like these cracks right here there's often dirt and debris and stains right there here's how i like to handle that situation i like to first take my detailing brush now the detailing brush is great for cleaning wheels it's great for cleaning vents but it works on leather too so i have a brand new one that i'm gonna use just for leather and what i'm actually gonna do is i'm gonna take my brush put on the towel and i'm gonna spray my brush with the leather cleaner okay notice how i did that i sprayed my brush and soaked the hair with the leather cleaner now i'm going to go down in the crack and i can scrub each individual crack with the brush i can also get in all the tiny pores to clean out the leather i don't want to spray the cleaner directly on the leather surface because then that if i were to do that i could easily accidentally stain the surface by using too much cleaner let me add a little bit more cleaner to my brush this is a great way to clean sensitive leather goods with a brush the brush is a great way to truly take out all the dirt and debris especially from this leather because leather has light holes in it these aren't air conditioned seats or heated seats but they still need to be cleaned and the brush does a great job of cleaning it here we go the goat brush is really cool because it's gentle enough to not harm the leather but it's tough enough to scrub out a lot of the dirt and debris okay so let's go ahead and put my top my brush down i'm going to go and grab a dry microfiber towel and i'm going to come here and wipe away all the debris now notice how we started to get more color back over here the color is very dark but over here we've started started to restore that beautiful awesome color let's keep trying to restore it some more spray my brush and let's go ahead and scrub right here i'm being really sensitive on this car i wanted you guys to get the opportunity to see uh what it's like to detail a uh high-end classic car these cars require a little bit more time and effort than a classic car this car was actually brought to us by the mercedes-benz club of america pretty cool they brought down a couple cars for us to do full restoration details on and enhance the finish there we go i want you guys to know detailing and cleaning something like leather is all about patience it's not about rushing the process it's about getting the best job done that we can okay now that i have my surface clean up and take my microfiber towel and gently wipe off our extreme leather cleaner there we go and just look at the difference we have from over here just to over here you've noticed that the pores have actually started to absorb the moisture and they started to clean a lot better let's clean this one right here so you can see it one more time spray my brush and let's clean this one you see how it looks before it looks very brown and dark we're gonna see if we can lighten up the color with the extreme leather cleaner there we go now you notice i'm just working the brush gently in there i'm not scared about the brush harming the surface because it's a sensitive hair and it's plastic so that means if i even bump the leather it's not going to scratch it or harm it this brush is great because it gets down to all these cracks crevices all the small places which make a big difference in the overall look of the car we're gonna once we've cleaned the surface i'm gonna go ahead and wipe off my leather you notice look at the difference once again we went from this leather over here which is dark and the holes in the leather are tight they're constricted over here we opened up the pores and even the difference from the back to the front you notice the pores of the diamonds have started to open up and now they're looking so much better this is a trick to leather cleaning leather cleaning takes time and energy but we make it look really easy so let's go ahead and clean some more surfaces on the outside closer to the center so i'm once again going to take my brush i'm going to spray my brush with the leather cleaner and then i'm going to take my brush i'm going to scrub the surface now leather cleaner is 100 percent ph neutral so it's not going to harm the leather in any way there we go now i'm spending some time to clean in the pores and make sure that we scrub that leather so nice like i said this leather is cracking in a lot of spots and i want to be sure that i don't harm the surface so now that i've cleaned the leather i'm going to go ahead and take my microfiber cloth and wipe it down and look at the difference we started to achieve over 50 years old leather and just look at the difference the difference from that side to that side is simply incredible and you can wipe off any moisture and look at that now this is what i was talking about the leather right here has actually started to crack the reason this leather has actually started to crack is because years of not being conditioned if you don't condition your leather it's going to lead to cracking like this so you want to make sure you take your time and condition the leather i'm going to work my way down on a few of these smaller cracks and the back surfaces and then we're going to come back and we're going to apply the chemicalized leather conditioner and make the other feel soft so we'll see you in a few moments after i do some more cleaning so now i've gone ahead and finished cleaning the leather we worked on the front seats now we're back in the back seats to finish up the conditioning leather cleaning really helps out the leather because it removes all that dirt and debris that gets stuck on your on your leather now the leather is a lot cleaner you can see over here we have older spots but this side has been cleaned and now we're ready to have conditioning process be applied if you don't condition your leather over time it leads to cracking like this leather right here has begun to crack and this is actually caused by dry leather which is caused by uva and uvb solar rays it's also caused by not conditioning your leather so to condition the leather restore that soft feel i'm going to use our chemical guys vintage leather conditioner now this is an all new formula it's designed with a natural leather scent and unique conditioners which go into the pores and make the leather feel soft and supple again it works on leather seats whether door panels or a dashboard leather headrests it also works on custom leather items like purses bag shoes and it's even great on your harley davidson motorcycle bags and seat so it's a great accessory to use for any leather product now before you apply the leather conditioner you want to clean the leather just like we did because look at all that dirt that came off our leather that's years of dirt that was on the leather we don't want to put our conditioner on top of the leather dirt so we want to take it off by using the leather cleaner now that leather is clean i'm gonna go ahead and start my conditioning now i'm gonna take my leather conditioner i'm gonna give it a good shake and i'm gonna go ahead and grab a microfiber applicator pad this is a premium microfiber applicator pad and we're gonna use this to apply the leather conditioner so i'm gonna first put down about three lines on our applicator pad that's just enough to get started and now i'm going to spread this on the surface and the way you spread it on the surface is gently rub it and then work it into the surface now look at it restore that color back to the leather that's the one thing that i was really looking forward to seeing is the leather conditioner just restores the amazing look and the natural color back so you notice over here is unconditioned leather it looks hard it doesn't look good and now look at the beautiful natural color of the leather we're bringing it out now let me add some more leather conditioner there we go now the leather conditioner actually has light cleaners in it as well so if you want to go ahead and just use the leather conditioner you easily can go ahead and do that if your leather is well maintained this works on leather dashboards all leather types of the car this car actually has leather door panels too where you rest your arm so we're going to go ahead and condition those up to make sure that they feel great you notice the leather color is already coming back which is super important i'm working it into my leather to make sure that it is perfect on this side work it in it's just like lotion for your leather so you work it into the leather and like i said this leather is really old it really needs conditioning and you notice our leather applicator pads starting to get a little bit dirty because we are pulling off more body oils the leather conditioner does have light cleaners in it to help it out now once we go ahead and apply leather conditioner i'm going to let this sit for a few minutes probably about 5-10 minutes i'm going to let the leather conditioner soak into the pores and soften the leather once it's soft i'm going to grab microfiber towel and remove it to a nice dry touch feel so we'll see in about 5-10 minutes so now our leather conditioner is dried and now we're gonna go ahead and remove it using a premium microfiber towel so i'm gonna grab another yellow microfiber towel and i'm gonna gently buff off any excess on the leather here we go now i love the way that the leather conditioner leaves the leather looking it's a dry to the touch and enhances the finish so it's dry to the touch it's no greasy feel and it makes sure that our color just looks great and if you notice our leather there's a big difference from over here the sides conditioned and ready to go this side over here is not conditioned and over here it's real dirty so we want to go ahead and make sure that our leather is always conditioned because if your leather is not clean in condition it can go from looking like this over to this with just a simple cleaning and conditioning difference it's a mega difference the chemical guys products are great on any type of leather so this leather uh conditioning process i showed you guys right here is perfect for any type of leather it's perfect for leather seats door panels dashboards even custom leather goods like motorcycle seats or bags and purses it's a perfect way to clean any leather surface so if you guys have any more questions about leather cleaning on any leather surface vintage leather new leather or custom leather surfaces like bags purses or harley-davidson motorcycle equipment you can check out our brand new chemical guys vintage leather conditioner and our awesome extreme leather cleaner on our youtube channel where we have more tech talk videos to teach you how to take care of your car truck motorcycle and rv you check out our facebook for more deals on all of our awesome products or you can find everything we use on this video on chemicalguys.com