Leather Dilemma!!

There is nothing worse than staining your favourite item specially when it is an expensive piece like my WHITE leather Balmain shirt! I do not know how it happened because I never even worn it but it happened, I took a deep breath and put it back in my wardrobe as it was too upsetting to deal with. A month later I took it out and just stared at it; what do I do? Working at Harrods and dealing with luxury products at Chelsea Styling accidents happen and I have a list of DIY quick fixers:

1. Use a pencil eraser for biro pen; this only really works if the biro has literally just marked the leather and you rub it off instantly. An eraser is also great for colour transfer from your clothing that has rubbed onto your light colour bag. I will be uploading a video of this on instagram today.

2. Milk: run a white cloth dipped in milk and dab it on the leather.

3. Hairspray: rub a white cloth soaked in hairspray on the leather. The cloth must be white otherwise the colour from the cloth can stain the leather.

4. Bleach: Use white bleach spray and soak a cotton bud and carefully go over just the stain.

5. Tipex: Tipex in this case saved the day, the tip of the brush was perfect for the fine line I had to go over.

6. Shoe Polish: Shoe polish is great as it comes in all colours so if you have a cream leather  the Tipex may be too white so I would suggest shoe polish.

7. Car Paint Pen: Have you ever scratched your car and bought a touch up pen? These pens come in shades of colours so it should be easy to find a perfect match. You can buy these on line or from Halfords.

8. Paint: Vist your local art shop and pick up some acrylic paint and paint over the mark with a fine pine brush.

9. Nail Polish Remover: This mainly works wonders on patent leather. Use a cotton bud and do not use too much.

I tried the eraser and the hairspray and it did not work, the pen had soaked into the fabric. I then took the shirt to three dry cleaners and three of them would not take it because it was too risky, too expensive and had too much embellishment. My last resort was Jeeves dry cleaners who specialise in this kind of problem. They previously managed to remove oil from my Chanel purse so I trusted them. The problem was they were going to charge me £250 and that was including a 20% off discount and a 50% chance it will come out. Why would I pay £250 when it may not come out.

I had one choice left and that was to paint it! If it looked bad it could not be as bad as it is now. I could not wear it so I had nothing to loose. I decided on Tipex because of the brush and the texture.

* I applied the smallest amount using the thin tip of the brush.

* I used my finger (must be clean) to dab/smudge the Tipex into the leather.

* After the first coat I applied a second layer.

* Left it to dry for twenty minutes.

I was so pleased with the result it came out better than I thought. Even when you look closely you can not see it. You can only see the white Tipex mark when I took a close up photograph with the flash on. When I do an outfit post I guarantee you will not see the marks.

Please follow the technique I used if you paint over the mark.

I took a photo of the marks and you could not even notice so I put the flash on and focused on the marks so you could see a clear photo of the Tipex.

This is a close up and you can hardly see the stain.

Comparison: Before and After:

Balmain Leather Shirt

Magic Method – Tipex

Claire xx