Buying a saddle, bridle, or harness is typically a fairly pricey investment. Naturally, you want to enjoy your purchase for as long as possible. Good maintenance can help extend the lifespan of your gear. There are many different products on the market for maintaining your leather saddle, bridle, and harness, and with so many options it's hard to know which product is actually best. How do you stop leather from deteriorating quickly or even cracking? To answer that, we first need to look at what leather actually is and how you can properly care for it.

Leather

Leather is made by tanning hides, transforming a perishable skin into a durable material. A hide only becomes "leather" once it has been tanned and treated. There are different types of leather — full-grain and split leather, for example.

Because a tanned hide is often too thick to work with directly, it's split into two or three layers. The outer layer is called full-grain (or top-grain) leather. This is the outermost layer, and it shows all the natural marks present in the hide — skin folds, insect bites, scars, and so on. This part is mainly used for the visible side of leather items.

The inner layer of the leather, so-called split leather, isn't of sufficient quality to be used directly for making leather items. By dyeing it, artificially embossing a grain pattern onto it, and reinforcing it with, for example, a PU coating, it becomes better suited for practical use. Suede is also made from the split layer.

Leather is a natural product and needs to be able to keep breathing. Maintaining leather means both cleaning and caring for it — these are two separate steps. After cleaning, you also need to care for the leather, because cleaning has a degreasing effect.

Products

There are plenty of different products on the market, but which one is actually the best? Sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees. As mentioned above, there are cleaning products and there are care products. Here's a brief rundown of the most common products on the market.

Leather grease

This is a product almost every owner knows. From a young age, riders are taught to grease their saddle with leather fat. The process is simple: you brush a layer of grease over your tack with a small brush, then rub it in with a cloth. It's always a bit of a job, and you end up with grease all over your hands, but you do get a nice, shiny result. So what does grease actually do?

Leather grease completely seals all the pores of the leather. By applying a layer of grease, you create a filter over the leather through which nothing can pass anymore — not even nourishing substances. As a result, the leather dries out from the inside. From the outside it looks beautifully glossy, but on the inside it's left irreversibly dried out.

Leather oil, dressing, or balm

Good liquid oils, dressings, or balms don't seal the pores of the leather — they soak into them. Just be sure it's a thin, liquid product. Thick oils, balms, or dressings clog the pores of the leather just as much as grease does.

Saddle soap

If you really want to take good care of your leather, saddle soap is an excellent product. By cleaning the leather thoroughly with saddle soap first, the care product applied afterwards can do its job much better. These days, saddle soap is also available in a liquid spray form.

Tip: don't forget the underside of your saddle either. The underside of the panels and sweat flaps come into direct contact with your horse's sweat. Sweat and salt work their way through the lining into the leather, and leather doesn't handle that well.

Leather Impregnation | LISS Products

A fairly new type of product is leather impregnation. The impregnation soaks into the leather, nourishing it from within while simultaneously protecting it against outside influences (rain, dirt, sweat).

Unlike other care products, this one isn't based on grease or oil. In fact, leather impregnation actually prevents grease from soaking into the leather. That's especially useful for bridles, where you're dealing with skin oils, sweat, and hair.

It's also water-repellent, which keeps the leather well protected against outside influences. The leather can still breathe, but the impregnation stops it from cracking.

Because leather impregnation isn't grease- or oil-based, it won't leave the leather feeling slick either, which means you can easily use it on, for example, the seat of your saddle.

Leather Cleaner | LISS Products

Another entirely new product is saddle cleaner from LISS Products. Most saddle soaps are glycerin-based. Glycerin cleans leather beautifully, but it also dries it out. LISS Products' saddle cleaner is environmentally friendly and sustainable to use. The cleaner doesn't dry out the leather — instead, it cares for it so it stays looking good for longer.

Conclusion

For proper maintenance and long-lasting enjoyment of your tack, it's essential to take good care of the leather. Prevent the leather from drying out and cracking.

Before treating leather with a care product, it's wise to clean it thoroughly first, using saddle soap or a saddle cleaner.

Greasy products make leather look beautiful and shiny, but be careful not to clog the leather up so much that it keeps ageing — and potentially cracking — from the inside.

Advantages of grease or oil:

• The leather looks very nice
• The leather initially feels supple
• It's water-repellent

Disadvantages of grease or oil:

• Mainly affects the outer layer of the leather
• In some cases seals the outer layer, so the inside keeps drying out
• It's slippery
• In some cases can rub off onto (white) riding breeches

Advantages of saddle soap / cleaner:

• Cleans the leather thoroughly, so care products can do their job better
• Often easy to use thanks to a spray format

Advantages of impregnation:

• Leather is also cared for from the inside
• Water-repellent
• Repels grease and dirt
• Not slippery, so it can be used anywhere
• Doesn't rub off onto clothing
• Easy to use thanks to a spray format

Disadvantages of impregnation:

• Needs some time to soak in, so it's best used after riding

Bibliography

Leder-onderhoud. (2022). Welcome to Leder-onderhoud. Retrieved from Leder-onderhoud: https://leder-onderhoud.nl/

De lederspecialist, D. (2022). All about leather. Retrieved from De lederspecialist: https://delederspecialist.nl/nl_NL/i/Alles-over-leder/13

Rozegarde, E. (2020, April 8). Saddle soap, oil, or leather grease after all? Retrieved from Bitmagazine: https://www.bitmagazine.nl/harnachement/zadelzeep-olie-of-toch-ledervet/122726/