To make this festive season a little less stressful and give you more time to enjoy yourself, we've put together some top tips for looking after your home and preparing for guests.
A thorough clean before Christmas to make sure everything is spotless and tidy before your guests arrive is key to keep your home looking it's best.
If you have a leather or fabric sofa, we recommend that you clean and protect it at the start of each season.
In doing this, you will greatly prolong the life of your sofa and reduce the chances of staining, damage through wear, as well as colour loss.
If you have a leather sofa, many products such as baby wipes and all-purpose cleaners have chemicals and substances in them that can cause drying, cracking or colour loss so be sure to only use specialist cleaners.
If you haven't already, treat yourself to our amazing Leather Care Kit or Fabric Care Kit.
Typical British weather: cold and wet!
When arriving home, be sure to remove all wet clothing and shoes before putting your feet up.
Water can mark fabric and leather, which will need to be treated with specialist products, specific to the material.
Dark and denim items can often cause dye transfer too! These stains will need to be cleaned immediately, before being treated with an effective Leather Stain Remover.
During the cold winter months, fires and heaters are used more often at high temperatures.
Leather items should be kept at a significant distance as the heat will eventually cause the leather to dry, resulting in cracking.
If moving your furniture isn't an ideal solution, make sure your leather items are always protected with a Leather Protection Cream.
When wrapping presents, be careful where you put sticky-tape!
Most leather furniture has a layer of finish applied to the surface to seal in the colour.
When it comes to peeling the tape off the leather, you may remove some of the finish, which may require a small repair with our Leather Finish Kit.
Body creams and moisturisers are popular Christmas gifts and a pamper night essential, along with leave-in conditioners.
But, did you know that some of these products contain oils that can stain leather and fabric?
Try to avoid direct contact with leather and fabric when using these products and again, make sure your items are protected!
If areas do begin to darken, you will need to use a Leather Degreaser to remove the oils from the leather.
Once the oils have been removed the leather may need re-colouring. To do this use a Leather Re-Colouring Balm or Leather Colourant Kit. To stop grease being absorbed again, use the Leather Protection Cream once every three months.
This time of year, we understand that new furniture is at the bottom of your shopping list.
So, rather than replacing your leather sofa or armchair, why not restore them instead?
As well as our amazing range of leather care and restoration products, we have created 'how-to' and video guides to help you with your repair. Here are some that you may find useful:
- How to restore the colour to faded leather
- How to change the colour of leather
- How to repair scuffs and scratches in leather
- How to repair other common problems such as staining
Be prepared for food and drink spills with our collection of stain removers.
Although protecting your leather and fabric items regularly will make stains more manageable, leave the spillage long enough and eventually, staining may occur.
We recommend tackling spillages and stains as quickly as possible with specialist stain removers, that should be an essential part of your cleaning cupboard.
Adding our Leather Protection Cream and Fabric Protector to your Christmas shopping list will ensure that any spillages or mishaps that occur during the party season can easily be cleaned away.
Be prepared for those stubborn stains with our Fabric Stain Removal Kit and our Leather Stain Remover.
Click here to see how effective our Red Wine Stain Remover is at removing red wine from fabric and carpets!
We recommend that you start your Christmas preparations the week leading up to the big day as this means that you won’t feel rushed to get everything done.
Protecting your leather and fabric items also means that you can spend Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year relaxing with those close to you, drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies, without having to worry about any accidents!
