Treatments for a Leather Interior

• Leather car seats properly maintained always look and feel great. Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

  The luxury of leather car seats and interior details cannot be disputed. When they are well cared for they can last the lifetime of the car. Keeping them in great condition is not hard but it requires some dedication. Leather, when clean and polished, will keep its color and body. It will stay soft and be less prone to cracking if it is well nourished. A good maintenance routine is to clean up spills and remove crumbs from seats and interior features as soon as they fall and give all leather a monthly clean and polish.

Damp Cloth and Microfiber Towels

• To keep leather seats and all leather interior features in the best condition, wipe them down frequently with a damp cloth. Experienced car detailing pros from OC Detailing in Salt Lake City, Utah, say that doing this often keeps dirt from building up on the surface and working its way into seams. They say that the most important tool for leather care is microfiber towels. They recommend using a clean microfiber towel for each step of leather care, from occasional wiping down to removing excess cleaner to buffing after polishing.

Cleaning Products

• Most leather cleaners are gels or lotions that are made specifically for cars. They should be applied with an applicator such as a soft microfiber cloth. Some leather cleaning products come with applicators attached to the bottle. Cleaner can get trapped in leather seams so the seams should be avoided when applying the cleaner. Linda Cobb in her book "Talking Dirty to the Queen of Clean" recommends cleaning leather interiors with a simple bar of super-fatted body soap applied very lightly with a soft cloth and then buffed.

Polishing Product

• "Consumer Reports," in an article about car detailing, says that after cleaning, leather interiors should be treated with a polish or conditioner made just for leather car interiors. These are available at auto supply stores. They recommend this step especially for leather that is dried out. Some polishes are scented to smell like leather. The leather should be buffed well with a dry microfiber towel after the polish is applied.