Refinishing and Recoloring Leather

In line with my beliefs that people need to learn to repair and reuse more things, here's a hub about refinishing and redyeing leather. When the skins of cows and sheep are dried and treated, they make leather and, although no longer a living material, it offers up many of the benefits that living skin does. It resists water more than many kinds of cloth, it's very strong and it's flexibile, which enables it to be used for a really wide variety of uses.

In its natural state, leather is a light tan to brown color, much like the shades of human skin. But once tanned (the process of treating the animal skin to make finished leather) it can be dyed or painted on to change the color and appearance. Leather shoes, jackets and handbags are very useful but when used everyday, the finished often becomes scuffed or faded.

Wear your grubbies. Working with dyes or paints is messy and it might not be the sort of mess that comes off your clothes.

Work where you have really good ventilation. Leather dye gives off a lot of fumes and you need a lot of fresh air when you work with it. Outside is best.

Put down a drop cloth on your work surface. Dyes tend to stain everything they touch, so unless you want your table to change color, putting down a plastic sheet or cutting a heavy garbage bag open and spreading it out is a good idea.

Wear gloves. Really, I'm not trying to be your mother and nag but.. Wear Gloves! It's not just that dyes can stain your fingers and hands, it's that the chemicals in them can cause all sorts of health issues and those chemicals most often get in your body when they seep through the skin.

I'm going to explain how you can redye leather using the example of a belt I got. I bought a vintage art nouveau (of course!) belt buckle off eBay, and then went to the thrift store to try and find a leather belt wide enough to fit it (it's 70s huge, I'm not exaggerating). After a few weeks, I found the perfect belt: right size, hardware matched the buckle color, snapped to its old buckle so changing it to the new one would be effortless and only cost about $4. The one problem was the leather was white, and I just do not wear white, 2" wide belts.

So, I covered the table out on my patio to protect it, changed to an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt, put on some gloves and went to work. First I wiped down the whole belt with what's called "deglazer." This takes off the old leather sealing and even removed the white leather paint, leaving me with a tan belt with some whitish bits around the hardware. I used some old cloth rags to do the wiping down, and I would like to note it took about 3/4 of a four ounce bottle of deglazer to strip a 32" belt, so if you have a big project like a whole leather jacket or pair of boots, make sure to get enough.

Once the leather item has had the old sealer and color removed, you want to let it dry. This won't take too long. Then you are ready to dye or paint the cleaned item. Dye is a stain that seeps into the surface, paint is a pigment and binder that sticks to the surface. If you choose to use paint on your leather, make sure to get one made just for leather. The acrylic mix used on leather is made to be more flexible than regular acrylic, so it will wear better over the long-term. Regular acrylic has a tendency to crack and can sometimes flake off with lots of wear.

Be sure to read the instructions for the product you bought and make sure it's right for what you are trying to do. For dyes, most just have to be wiped over the surface of the leather, and they sometimes can be applied a few times to make a darker color. If you are trying to get really bright colors, you either have to start with very light leather, or use paints.