So it all started with a bit of rain. There's been multiple storms coming through the Bay Area in the last couple weeks and I just so happened to get caught in one of them with my new brandy Mansur Gavriel mini lady bag. Eek I know! And so of course I got a bunch of rain spots all over the brandy leather. When it dried it wasn't terrible but still noticeable. So I decided I would get rid of the spots and protect the leather from future rain storms by using Chamberlain's Leather Milk No. 3. Since my past review of Chamberlain's leather milk and other leather cleaners/conditioners on Mansur Gavriel bags were all on black leather I wasn't sure what to expect.
But I wasn't expecting this:
I know, I did a really terrible job with the even application. But I didn't quite know how terrible it was until I took these pictures. I freaked out a bit but decided to wait and see how the conditioner dried before doing anything drastic.
And whew! It dried evenly. You can't see the conditioner despite my poor application job:
But three things I've learned from using this leather conditioner on my brandy bag:
1) It will darken the natural color of the bag. In the picture above you can see the original color on the drawstring. The leather milk deepend the brandy color.
2) The conditioner also changes the feel of the leather. Before it was a much drier, stiffer leather. Now it's definitely a little more malleable and I hope this will help prevent more superficial scratches in the future.
3) The leather conditioner will also bring out pre-existing scratches more since the scratched leather doesn't seem to absorb the conditioner like the leather area around it.
Now that I know what I know would I have conditioned this bag like I did? Probably because at least you can't see the rain spots anymore and I don't mind the slightly darker color. Plus I know my bag is probably more protected in future storms!
{edit: So I just read Chamberlain's Leather Milk FAQ page--which is a great resource about their products and leather cleaning in general--and have determined I way over-conditioned it and (obviously) did not apply even layers. If you're planning on buying their products, definitely go to their site for more info.}