Shiny, Happy Westeds...

[Gater]

Although it has been in my house for weeks, I won't be getting my Wested lambskin until Christmas (3 weeks!! 3 LONG weeks!)

I have decided to not artificially distress it, but I want to eliminate the 'new leather shine'. Will a coating of Picards reduce the sheen?

Will it only take acetone/alcohol to dull the shine, or will Picards do the trick?

I tried to do a search for this, but came up empty.

thoughts?

[ob1al]

You might want to consider leaving the jacket 'as is' for a while first, until you break it in a bit and see how you feel. In my experience, the 'brand-new' shine on the auth. lamb goes away quite quickly anyway, after some daily wear.

Pecards won't dull the shine IMO - in fact, it brings a shine back to the leather in my experience.

Regards

Al

[Gater]

Good to know! Thanks, Al

[Swindiana]

Some Swedish people have either taken her for a spinn or gone outside with her for some singing in the rain or even both, if you will. No animals were hurt during these missions, says both lamb and goat, but let someone else go first if you find it too dangerous.

Confidentially yours,
Swindiana

[Scandinavia Jones]

Ah... removing the shine. Yes.

Al is absolutely right - for starters, wear it. That will lessen the sheen to begin with. If, after a couple of months or so, jacket still gleams like pleather auto upholstry - go for one - or both - of these Swedish methods:

Pluvial method:
When encountering heavy rain, don your jacket and go outside. Wander around in rain while wearing jacket. When soaked, wait for a couple of more minutes and go inside again. For the sake of it, wear wet jacket for a while to make sure it conforms to your torso. Sheen will disappear and jacket will drape nicely. Hang jacket to dry.

Revolving metal-drum method:
Turned the Wested inside out, throw it the tumble dryer and let it bounce around with a couple of towels for a good 10 minutes. NO HEAT. That means tumble dry COLD. Afterwards, the texture of the leather will be a bit coarser. Sheen will be gone, too (probably changed his name back to Estevez).

DISCLAIMER - it worked for me. Use above instructions at own risk.

[Mr. Das]

I used the dryer method to remove the shine from my lamb, but I used heat. I put it inside out and stuff it inside a pillow case, which was stuffed inside another pillow case.

Use at your own risk, because I remember someone saying that the zipper scratched their jacket.

[Ken]

I used the dryer method to remove the shine from my lamb, but I used heat. I put it inside out and stuff it inside a pillow case, which was stuffed inside another pillow case.

Use at your own risk, because I remember someone saying that the zipper scratched their jacket.

Be very very careful - you can seriously shrink your jacket by using heat so as it wont fit you anymore!!

Ken

[Scandinavia Jones]

I'm with Ken here - tumble drying with heat will shrink the jacket. I did that too, because my jacket was a bit too roomy - took the jacket down almost an entire size.

[IndianaGuybrush]

SJ, did it shrink the sleeves as well? I only ask because the body of my jacket could stand to be a bit snugger, but the sleeves are dang near perfect.

[Scandinavia Jones]

SJ, did it shrink the sleeves as well? I only ask because the body of my jacket could stand to be a bit snugger, but the sleeves are dang near perfect.

Yes. My jacket - being a size too big - had two major 'problems': the jacket body was too wide and the sleeves were a bit too long for comfort. The dryer ride took care of both issues - jacket body changed more than the sleeves though. However, if sleeve length is perfect, I wouldn't recommend tumble-shrinking.