Effax for me! Although for truly desperate tack nothing beats lard or crisco.
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Dr Bronnerās Castile Soap and Beeswax oil (German brand comes in a bright orange bottle.)
Belvoir Step-1 Tack Cleaner for really gunky leather.
For light cleaning I use Dr Bronners, itās a castile soap, and I love the Lavendar scent.
Second favorite, and for gunkier issues I like Bar in a Jar glycerine- again great scent!
For oiling/conditioning I like Lederbalsam.
Damp cloth wipe down, Belvoir conditioner.
This! Effax Lederbasalm is recommended by Custom Saddlery for their buffalo hide saddles so I use that now, but always loved the Passier one.
Iām super excited to learn, upthread, that Higher Standards is now sold on RW. One container lasts surprisingly long as you only need to use it very sparingly, but after 1.5 years mine is running low. I like that it doesnāt make the leather sticky like other products. The great scents are a nice bonus (and no, your tack wonāt smell afterwards).
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Cleaner: Voltaire Hercules Glycerine Soap
Conditioner: Antares conditioner
I see I bought a can of belvoir ledersbalm but havenāt tried it yet. I think it will be more oily less tacky than Passier?
It would be useful to have all these products in categories.
Passier is quite gummy and tacky, I think it has lots of beeswax? I love how it has conditioned my Passier saddle but it does attract dust and can contribute to little dust jockey dirt balls between the flaps.
Belvoir seems to me it will be more of a solid state oil base, like the local conditioner I bought and like higher standards.
Iām not sure but I think Effax ledersbalm is beeswaxy and tacky like Passier?
Then there are pure oils, mineral or linseed or neatsfoot, old school but useful for reviving very crunchy leather.
Then there are animal fat based conditioners? Is that why some smell like bacon? Iāve never investigated these.
So: beeswax like Passier ledersbalm, solid state oils like Belvoir, straight oil old school, or stinky bacon fat? Is there another category of conditioner or can all the conditioners mentioned in this thread fit into one of these categories?
As far as soap, there is glycerine and Castile soap as basic categories, then things like Feibings that are milder but donāt clean as well. IME the conditioners are more important than the soap within reason. Iāve used hand soap and even a Lysol wipe down on moldy tack with no change in the results if I condition.
I havenāt like any one step or clean and condition wipes Iāve tried. They seem to leave a very sticky residue.
Generally, most conditioners are lanolin or fat based. Lanolin is the key compononent in almost every conditioner compound that Iāve found, though manufacturers like to hype up other conditioning sources like beeswax or exotic oils because it sells better than āthis product is made of sheep renderingsā.
Fat and/or lanolin based:
Hammanol
Oakwood Conditioner
Effax Leather Balsam
Passier Leatherbalsam
Vegetable based:
Belharra
Akene (maybe? Not sure)
Petroleum Based:
Ko Cho Line (I think)
Leather Honey
Castile soap, to my knowledge, is glycerin.
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Thanks, very useful! Better categories than I came up with!
I really like the Belvior spray cleaner. It is great for mold.
i like the Leather Therapy Conditioner, also good for mold. It leaves a nice feel. I also like Hydrophane oil.
I wioe down down with water regularly, use the Belvior probably weekly and condition once a month. Over conditioning will make it build up a film. Also, use your tack! It only gets that lovely soft rope-y feel from use and care together.
I love Joseph Lyddey!
Does anyone besides me remember the lovely scent of Thoro-chem? I do not believe it is being made any longer, but if anyone knows what smells similar, please let me know. I loved that stuff back in the 1960ās. (Yes, I am a dinosaur, LOL).
Higher Standards.
Got Stubben cleaner and the Hamanol conditioner (which definitely smells like bacon) with my saddle so have been using that as well. The Hamanol works better if itās been in the sun, but then it tends to exit the container a bit too fast.
Re bold: can you elaborate?
I find them very different in useā¦
I admit I am not an expert on soaps, but most common soaps contain glycerin. Glycerin is usually either animal fat or vegetable oil.
Castille soap definitely has glycerin in it. I did some reading because I was curious just how and when in the process of making castile that glycerin shows up, and apparently itās a byproduct after combining fats and lye. Evidently glycerin is also used in food? Gross.
[QUOTE=beowulf;n9808471]
I admit I am not an expert on soaps, but most common soaps contain glycerin. Glycerin is usually either animal fat or vegetable oil.
Castille soap definitely has glycerin in it. I did some reading because I was curious just how and when in the process of making castile that glycerin shows up, and apparently itās a byproduct after combining fats and lye. Evidently glycerin is also used in food? Gross.[/QUOTE
Glycerine is a by-product of traditional soap preparation. Fats and oils are triacylgyceride esters that react with lye (a base) in a saponification reaction to produce fatty acids (carboxylic acids) and glycerol (an alcohol, actually a triol). Based on a quick Google search, the source of the triacylglyceride in Castile soap is olive oil and any triacylglyceride is going to produce glycerol.
Soap is produced in base so the fatty acids are present as their anions (carboxylate anions); these have long carbon chains that donāt like water (hydrophobic), topped with the anion that does like water (hydrophilic). In water, the soap molecules form spherical aggregates (micelles) with the tails in the middle and the heads on the outside. They work to clean because dirt is mostly hydrophobic and gets trapped in the middle of the micelle.
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There is a kind of soap marketed as glycerine soap that is transparent and somewhat flexible, as in some saddle soap and also bath brands like Pearās.
When Iāve seen Castile soap sold as a bar it is opaque and rigid like most bar soap. There is also liquid Castile soap.
They seem to have different properties and I find the glycerine soap really cuts through tack crud.
I do not know what the actual difference in ingredients is or if the glycerine soap contains glycerine but that is the generic or common name for themm
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Based in Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerin_soap) there are two factors that distinguish the glycerine soaps. One is that the glycerine (glycerol) by-product is removed from some other soaps. The other is that glycerine soaps are processed in a special way (using alcohol) to render them translucent. The process is described in the Wikipedia article.
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Ok clearly my basic research skills escaped me today! 
