I just bought two Ovation bridles during the Memorial Day sales, and they are not nearly as soft as the ones I remember having several years ago. Is Neatsfoot oil still the best way to help with softening leather?
I don’t think there is a “best” oil, I prefer Walsh’s Blue Ribbon because it has a bit of stain in it, so it darkens new leather with one application without having to over oil it. But other than for brand new tack I try to avoid using oil and just use a good conditioner instead. Cleaning, conditioning and everyday use will soften and supple your bridles in time. Trying to oil them too much to get them soft quickly can weaken the leather and lead to stretching.
Anything and everything Effax 
I have used a variety of oils over the decades, and their oil and softener/conditioner is by FAR the highest quality. A little pricier, but your tack will thank you.
Hydrophane darkening oil if you want to change the color, then Effax.
Stitching today is usually nylon not cotton so its not affected by oils.
Really depends what you want the tack to look like after.
A really good soaking in neatsfoot and working the oil into the leather by bending the leather can make tack silky soft but also that generic brownish blackish oiled old bridle color.
As a kid in the 1970s our low end tack was very unfinished leather often stiff as cardboard and you had to do this to even use it. Those bridles are back in use today and just fine. Well, one bridle got 6 months in a bucket of mineral oil. It’s completely impervious to everything now.
But I wouldn’t do this to the modrrn better quality bridles with nicer finishes to the leather. I would stick with conditioners worked in and lots of bending the leather.
I love Effax products except for one of their oils, because it is made with whale oil, so I won’t use it. 
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:eek: Which one??
Do you know which one? A quick google search and most sites list the ingredients in very generic terms. I wouldn’t want to buy one that uses whale oil in it.
https://www.dressageperformance.shop…er-oil-500ml-1 This one. :no: I don’t think I will support a company that uses whale oil in one of their products.
Edit to add: after googling some more sounds like any of their products that say they contain “train” oil contain whale oil. Traan is the dutch word for whale.
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If you mention the names of the various products I could figure it out, but I don’t remember offhand. I think it has the word “soft” in it?
The product was Leder Soft (Leather Soft) but after looking at its ingredients whale oil is not mentioned so either they removed it or it is just in the product rhymes_with_orange just posted.
Wow- thanks BAC for that info. No way I am supporting Effax when they use whale oil 
Gonna throw out an oddball here if you want to be cheap: Lard. Works wonders. Solid Crisco works in a pinch too, but not as well IMO.
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Train oil is another term for whale oil, indeed coming from the Dutch word traan, so if it says it has train oil in it…
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Butet Akene
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The leather is already a dark oil so I am not worried about it darkening any more. The leather isn’t total cardboard, it just isn’t as soft as I thought I remembered the Ovation bridle that I owned several years ago.
I found this: https://thornews.com/2012/04/02/norwegian-children-have-to-drink-tran-cod-liver-oil/
Looks like cod liver oil, not whale oil. “Tran” is on the Effax label - but only for the oil, not for the softener.
I have a couple of products at home and the label for Leder-Soft says it contains a "mixture of gentle, caring oils, lanolin, avocado oil, perfume ". The leder-creme seife says “natural oils and extracts such as avocado oil, coconut oil, aloe vera.” Maybe they have covered whale oil in those descriptions or else these two products don’t contain it.
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Yes, that what it (the label) says on my other Effax products…Very nice softeners, easy on the leather (and the nose), and makes the leather soft and supple, but not greasy.
Be sure the leather is warm, leave it in your car for a bit. Warm some Olive Oil ( cheap stuff is fine). Sit watching tv and use your fingers to massage it into the leather. Put another LIGHT coat on every time you use it for a week. Understand nothing will do it instantly and just warming it and a little bit of oil and working it in your hands will do more then any product. And don’t over oil condition, much as you might want to. Don’t. Be careful of products containing glycerine too, they actually seal the leather from absorbing and st tuff builds up on top of it to where you can scrape it off with your fingernail. Been several threads on this. Dulls the finish.
Leather softens over time and gets a patina and feel no expensive combination of oils and often wax that can build up will ever match. It takes a little time, not money and fancy products.
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Another vote for lard, IF I avoid touching all the rubber and metal with the lard.
I get a new piece of tack–I take it apart and lard it as soon as possible. I HAVE TO make sure to get the ends of the straps through their keepers so both can swell up together. I had a good leather bridle, did not put the ends of the straps through their keepers, and I have to STRUGGLE to get them through ever since.
Every once in a while my riding teacher finds old bridles, often of decent leather, which fell into a corner or got forgotten in a tack trunk, and she asks me to lard them up. With the lard I can get dried out, stiff, cardboardy leather supple enough to start using the bridle again. Then it really takes use on the horse and repeating the lard every month or so until the leather gets truly supple again.
Lard is sold as Crisco in the grocery stores and, yes, it’s an option, so is Lanolin ( from sheep). just keep a towel handy for your hands and use a small amount massaging it in. Warm is better too, opens the pores of the leather. Good for the fingernails too.
