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What's a good product for waterproofing leather?

Asked by Thammuz (9277points) April 27th, 2012

I’m making some leather bracers. I bought the leather, the ink, cut the pieces and put them together, then I remembered something.

Back when I used to use this kind of stuff more, I noticed leather tends to wear out pretty rapidly when worn on the skin, mainly because the sweat would sink into the pores and basically rot it.

Now, i’m not going to wear these bracers as often as I used to do back then (When I was actively trying to be a stereotypical metalhead) or as long, but I’m going to sweat in them, because they’re black, and thick, and thus tend to get hot.

I’ve looked into waterproofing on the net and found that the prevalent answer seems to be Sno-Seal, which is a beeswax waterproofing cream. Problem is they don’t sell it here in Italy and thus I would have to find a replacement that is:

a) Suitable for the rough, untreated side of the bracers (the inner side).

b) Not damaging to the skin, even to sensitive ones (My skin is very sensitive, I tend to get rashes for every little thing).

c) Of a generic enough description that I can actually tell “I’d like this kind of product” to a shopkeeper and they will give me the Italian counterpart.

I’ve tried googleing “beeswax leather waterproofer” (in Italian of course) but most products bear the warning that they should not be used on suede and untreated leather, which either means that they wouldn’t work or that waterproofing it that way would be considered a damage, even thought it would get the job done (I.E. it would ruin the texture of a pair of suede shoes, but it would make them waterproof, which is irrelevant to me, because I don’t care how the inside looks, but only about points a) and b) ).

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