I bought a couple of used bridles awhile back that have kind of a gross feel to them that hasn’t gone away with cleaning with saddle soap or Leather New. One has an awful sticky, grimy/grungy feeling that has gone away some with several cleanings with saddle soap, but is still there. The reins are the worst, but the headstall is pretty bad as well. The other is a little sticky, but more greasy than anything. All I can think of is that it may have been over-oiled.
These are otherwise great older bridles and I can live with it, but I’d rather them not have a weird residue. Is there any way to get rid of this?
A gallon of hot water with a capful of ammonia will do the trick. Sounds like maybe a buildup of product sitting on the leather. Ammonia will strip all the crap off, then lightly condition with a quality conditioner.
Yes, OP, you need to strip off what’s on there. If the bridles are flappy-soft, chances are they were over-oiled and/or over conditioned when cleaned each time. If they are stiff but gummy, you have a build-up of glycerine soap-- so not enough cleaning when they were “cleaned” each day, and too much glycerine wiped on over that dirt and scurf.
Palm Pony’s plan is right, but I’d add some things.
You can use ammonia in a greater concentration than 1 cap full per gallon of water. This is especially true if the bridles are flappy such that there’s an abundance of oil all the way through the thickness of the leather. Hot water is your friend, too.
Take everything apart and clean each piece with this water/ammonia concentration. towel it off-- you should see the dirt (with grease attached) coming off on your towel.
By the time you get to the last piece of the bridle, look at the first piece, especially the underside of a strap and see if you are down to bare leather-- not gray-looking smudges on it.
If you find you can’t get down to bare level, you can do this operation again with a tooth brush. Here, you are adding friction to the emulsifying chemical (ammonia and heat) stuff you have going on. I’m not one to use friction to get crap off leather on the first go-round, but I will if I have to. Again, wipe off each wet piece as you go and see how dirty your towel gets.
I like soft tack, so when I’m done with this step and the pieces are a bit damp, I might use a light coat of neatsfoot or an oil-rich saddle soap to put some of the oil I stripped out back in.
Then, I let that cleaned and oiled tack dry.
At the very end, I’d go over it with high quality glycerine or Murphy’s Oil Soap on a damp sponge. That’s the last phase of tack cleaning that puts the soft glow onto it. But you don’t want to rub dirt into that layer.
You could also try castille soap - I typically find it to be too effective/stripping to use regularly so it might work great along with warm water and some elbow grease with a nubby towel.
Oooh, yes: Castille soap would work. OP, I’d try this before with the towel-off before I did the ammonia. I think the process could be just as effective and a tad easier.
Seconding (thirding? fourthing?) the castille soap or ammonia recommendations. I also like to use the Higher Standards leather care soaps afterward, I’ve found they clean really effectively.
While ammonia works, I am too Sensitive a Snowflake for the fumes :dead:
Oddly, I do like the smell of vinegar.
I’d get Dr Bronner’s Castile soap - comes in all sorts of (natural) scents as well as unscented.
Walgreens carries it.
Bonus: you can use it on you too :encouragement:
If it’s a build up of body grease/ scurf/ grunge, Moss makes Grunge Away (or something similar) that strips all kinds of grimy biological residue off with an orange based emulsifier. it might help if the problem is an applied fat/ oil too. I find it’s very effective but a little drying so I usually follow it with a nice nourishing saddle cleaner.
It also is great for all kinds of biological ick like bit grunge.
going to sound crazy, but I had an old bridle I didn’t care much about ruining as I just wanted to use it for parts, put mine in the washing machine with castile soap- worked like a charm and saved me hours of scrubbing and breathing in ammonia
MVP’s (and Palm Pony’s) advice is as usual, right on the money. The accumulation of gunk is old product, sweat, dirt, residue. Soaking in hot water alone would help - leather is porous, so water seeps through the leather and pushes out old residue when the leather fibers expand (due to being soaked).
The ammonia bath method is great to break in leather, and is generally harmless - as long as you follow up with a good conditioner. Wait for the leather to dry completely, before oiling or conditioning. IME after a bath, that’ll be a few days.
I’ve found the easy way to degunk old leather is to soak 2m or so in hot water, towel off until you do not get any more black streaks on the towel, OR until the grey smudges on the leather (that is the gunk, bleeding to the surface) are no longer visible. Sometimes it takes multiple soaks before the towel wipes clean.
Second piece of advice I would give, is to stop using the Leather New product you mentioned. In my experience they are not high quality in how they clean, and lend to the gumminess you feel. Castile soap, followed by leaderbalsam and/or a good neatsfoot coat, are my preferred leather products. There’s tons of great products on the market now, but I always tend to go back to castile soap and a good leaderbalsam.
FYI Castile soap will really dry out leather, so I don’t prefer to use it right after a soaking, and always follow up with a light pat-down of some sort of conditioner any time I use it. Castile soap is wonderful but does make leather tacky - so it is great if you have non-thirsty leather that you want to “tackify” - IE, before XC, or in a ride during the rain, etc.
For upkeep of this type of leather that has been heavily bathed, it’ll really get broken in by this procedure. I prefer to do upkeep by wiping down with a slightly damp rag after each ride, vs cleaning it after each ride.
