Baby oil is very versatile and has many uses apart from its primary function of oiling the delicate skins of babies. Baby oil is used for all kinds of purposes but is baby oil good for faux leather?
Using baby oil on your faux leather goods will help keep it looking new while giving it a protective layer that prevents the damaging effect of the sun’s harmful rays, temperature changes, and other weather elements.
We can not conclude something is truly good or bad if we do not take a comprehensive look at its pros and cons.
So for the remaining parts of this article, I’m going to share with you the advantages and disadvantages of applying baby oil on faux leather.
I will conclude by sharing with you the right way of applying baby oil on faux leather goods.
Keep reading this article so you do not miss out on any of the good stuff I’m going to share on this topic.
Short Info About Baby Oils
Baby oil is a well-known skincare product that was originally made to be used on baby’s skins.
But this product is widely used by a lot of adults for moisturizing the face, body, and for various hacks around the house.
What makes baby oil a pretty helpful product is how generally safe it is for most skin types even though it’s a synthetic oil.
Because it’s fairly gentle and rarely causes any sort of allergic reactions when it is applied on faux leather goods, you’re generally not going to any reactions – except for people who have acne-prone skin.
Pros Of Using Baby Oil On Faux Leather Goods
Now that we have taken a look at some few important things about what baby oil is, here are some advantages of using baby oil on your faux leather goods.
1. Baby Oil Prevents Premature Cracks On Faux Leather Goods
Taking care of your faux leather goods is not all that easy like how most people make it look.
While a PVC moisturizer like the Trinova Faux Leather Conditioner will be great for the synthetic surface (usually polyvinyl chloride) of faux leather, applying a very thin layer of baby oil will help to slow down the cracking that most faux leather goods are prone to.
Yes, faux leather as a material will crack and these cracks will inevitably happen to your faux leather goods as that’s how faux leather breaks down.
Eventhough baby oil is not going to stop these cracks from happening it helps to prevent its early appearance.
Because baby oil is a petroleum product, an application of it on faux leather goods is going to create a protective coating on its surface to help preserve the leather in the long term.
2. Baby Oil Protects Faux Leather From UV Damage
Although the sun has some tremendous benefits to the human skin, it’s a common enemy for most leather goods whether fake or real leather.
When faux leather goods are frequently exposed to the sun, it will speed up the process of it deteriorating.
Applying a layer of baby oil is a good way to protect the faux leather from the sun’s harmful rays.
The protective layer the baby oil is going to give to your faux leather goods is also going to come from the fact that baby oil is a petroleum product.
This enables the baby oil to create a fairly solid protective coating that prevents the damaging effects of sunlight, the various changes in temperature, and weather.
If you do not have any specially formulated faux leather care product, using baby oil is going to be a great alternative because once faux leather begins to crack and flake there isn’t a lot you will be able to do to stop it.
Related Article: 6 Best Leather Conditioners With UV Protection
3. Applying Baby Oil On Faux Leather Improves Its Appearance
Another important advantage of applying baby oil on faux leather is how well it’s going to improve the look of the faux leather item.
We all enjoy how faux leather beautifully imitates the luxurious look of real leather. So the rich shiny baby oil is going to put on faux leather is such a nice touch.
Generally, faux leather goods will start out looking very nice and clean with a solid color but with time the color and shine begin to gradually fade while the fresh new look grows stale.
Apart from cleaning your faux leather goods and ensuring the best practices, one sure way of enhancing and maintaining the general appearance of your faux leather goods is by applying baby oil especially if you do not readily have any faux leather care products.
You will be able to put a nice clean protective shine on the surface of your faux leather goods and also make it new-looking with baby oil.
4. Baby Oil Will Not Cause Rot On Faux Leather Goods
Most leather care products like mink oil and neatsfoot oil among other leather care products are known to often cause rot around stitches and sometimes the surface of leather where it’s applied.
While this is true for most natural leathers and some general leather care products, baby oil is a petroleum-based product so you wouldn’t have to worry about it going rancid after it is applied on faux leather.
The baby oil you apply on the surface of your faux leather is going to sit on the surface of the leather without getting soaked into the leather.
Usually, over-saturating leather oil on the surface of natural leather is what promotes rot. While this will not be the case with baby oil on faux leather, you still do not want to apply too much baby oil on your faux leather items.
You can apply baby oil as lightly as possible on your faux leather items and reapply a couple more times if it’s very necessary.
Cons Of Using Baby Oil On Faux Leather
After looking at the advantages of using baby oil on faux leather let’s now head over to the disadvantages of using baby oil on faux leather.
1. Baby Oil May Leave A Sticky Tack On Faux Leather
Generally, baby oil does a lot of good than bad to faux leather. But there is one main disadvantage to its use. Baby oil may result in the faux leather item feeling sticky.
Faux leather as a material is coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which makes it non-porous unlike you usually will with natural leather.
As mentioned earlier, due to the PVC coating on the surface of faux leather, when baby oil is applied to it, it will just sit on the surface of the faux leather item without getting it soaked.
With the baby oil residue just sitting on the surface of the faux leather it will gradually become sticky to touch – and nobody enjoys the sticky or tacky feel of leather.
Related Article: 3 Reasons Why Faux Leather Gets Sticky & 6 Ways To Easily Fix It
2. Baby Oil Will Cause Faux Leather To Attract Dust And Debris
Another common downside to using baby oil on faux leather is how the baby oil makes faux leather supceptible to dust, lint, and debris.
Due to the non-porous nature of faux leather, baby oil will stay on its surface, unlike real leather.
Whenever you apply oils on real leather, the oils get soaked into the fibers through the tiny little pores present on the surface of the natural leather.
But because faux leather has no such pores, you will always have oil residue just sitting on its surface.
When this happens the oiled faux leather item will easily attract a lot of dust and causes the leather to become dirty very quickly.
How To Apply Baby Oil On Faux Leather
Applying baby oil on faux leather goods is quite easy. It includes a few simple processes in order to apply it to your faux leather goods.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to apply baby oil on faux leather goods for the best result.
Step 1: Clean Your Faux Leather First. The first step to oiling your faux leather goods with baby oil is cleaning them.
You want to start by mixing a solution of dish soap and water.
Step 2: Dampen your soft clean rag with the dish soap solution and wring it out.
Step 3: Now begin to wipe the surface of the item. You would want to do this by maintaining a circular motion.
Step 4: After the item is thoroughly cleaned, rinse your rag in clean running water, wring it out and then clean off any soapy residue on the surface of the faux leather item.
Step 5: Leave the item to air-dry.
Step 6: After the faux leather item is dry, put a few drops of baby oil on a dry piece of microfiber cloth and begin to rub it in on the surface of the cleaned item.
You can continue to add a few more drops of oil from time to time if you find your rag is running out of oil.
Do not apply too much baby oil to your faux leather item.
Step 7: Finally, with a dry clean cloth, buff off any excess baby oil residue from the surface of the faux leather item.
Conclusion
In this article, I set out to help you find the answer to the question “is baby oil good for faux leather?”.
To do this, I shed light on the various advantages of applying baby oil to your faux leather items and the disadvantages of using baby oil on faux leather.
I hope I have helped to bring a little bit of clarity to this topic. If this article has been helpful to you, I’m sure the articles linked below will also help you with some more answers to related questions around faux leather goods.
Thank you for sticking around. Cheers!!!
