Strange Shinki Horsehide smell?

[jonesy86]

I wipe down some of my jackets with a weak vinegar and water solution to keep them from molding in this very humid climate.

 

[AeroFan_07]

I had one Shinki - leather jacket that was a Diamond Dave one, and it had essentially no smell at all. It was secondhand. Some folks have indicated very heavy smell from CXL leathers, which I like. But having only had one Shinki jacket I am not the best source.

 

[Blackadder]

Here is an idea. Use a horsehair brush to brush the leather and a cloth brush to brush the lining. If the smell got transferred to those brushes, it is probably something that got onto the materials. If not, then it is probably the leather itself.

 

[Don in Indiana USA]

Hey guys,

I recently purchased a gently used and fairly rare jacket made from Shinki horsehide. When it arrived I noticed right away a pretty strong odor, which at first smell reminded me of some kind of cologne or perfume? I asked the seller, a longtime member here, and he said that he doesn't use cologne and that it was potentially his detergent that transferred from his shirts that he wore with the jacket, or the shinki leather itself.

That was a few days ago, and the smell is still strong, even after the jacket has spent 48 hours or so hanging outside. The interior of the jacket doesn't really smell at all, but the leather itself does, which makes me think it's the shinki leather itself and not a transfer from detergent/washed clothing.

I did some research and read that this particular leather is tanned with mimosa bark, which can have a unique and astringent odor. I would probably agree that this is the kind of smell I'm smelling, but I'm not sure. It's driving me a bit crazy to be honest.

My next step may be to use a small ozone machine and lock the jacket and it in a large plastic bag for an hour or two.

Any ideas?

I can't speak to Shinki horsehide specifically, but various smells of assorted leather garments I've purchased in the past have resulted in various problems/solutions. Here are some of those, and perhaps you will find something you can use among them to assist you with your jacket.

1. A motorcycle jacket I ordered last summer from Pakistan arrived smelling like…I don't know what, but it was AWFUL and real strong. I figured some leather from Pakistan must be tanned somewhat differently than in the U. S. and returned the jacket to the seller. American leather, by contrast, tends to either have no particular smell or some kind of very wonderful, lingering/earthy leather smell from the processing of the hide. Pakistani leathers seem to be a roulette wheel in terms of what smell you may get, and whether it will be pleasant or not.

2. A couple of years ago I bought a pair of used Schott (Horween) steerhide pants which were in terrific shape but their previous owner had apparently been a heavy cigarette smoker. The pants were gorgeous leather but of course stank horribly. I read up on how to get rid of tobacco smoke odor in leather and the best solutions were those that weren't harmful to the material—vacuuming the pants inside and outside with a vacuum cleaner hose; aeration of the pants with a large box fan for days on end; and placement of the pants, as unfolded as possible, upon cooking racks set inside a plastic garbage bag that had lots of baking soda sprinkled inside it beneath the cooking racks.

I set up the bag, placed the pants on the racks right above the baking soda layer (but not touching it), sealed the bag, and waited for several days. After that, I changed the baking soda and repeated for another several days. All of this helped reduce the smell, but there was still some detectable odor of rancid smoke. I avoided trying the dryer option so as to not abrade the leather, but was surprised and pleased to discover later that just WEARING the pants outside for some long walks helped get rid of the remainder of the stink.

Porous leather acquires foreign smells because the odiferous molecules land on the pants and are absorbed somewhat into the fibrous surface structure of the leather, etc. Wearing the leather for a walk in the fresh air and sunshine gives it a chance to flex and breathe and thereby shed some of the offending molecules. In the end, I was able to eliminate the smoke odor without chemicals, without washing the pants in water and risking the appearance of the leather/dye, and without any physical abrasion of the leather such as a home dryer might cause, so I was happy with how this situation turned out.

3. Another pair of used leather pants I once bought arrived smelling of perfurme(!?) of a particularly smarmy scent, and I finally figured out it was because the seller had shipped the pants to me in a standard postal box but wrapped/sealed inside of one of those scented plastic garbage bags that are supposed to mask the smell of garbage in your trash can. It took weeks of off/on treatments, but the box fan blowing air at high speed at the pants (draped over the back of a chair) around the clock eventually rid them of that chemical-ish perfume smell. The bottom line lesson of this incident seems to be that many people don't realize that many types of leather will tend to absorb strong smells from pretty much any nearby source, and that the LAST thing you should do is ship leather closed up in a box with something strongly scented.

Overall, I would recommend against chemical and abrasive solutions, including washing leather clothing in the washing machine, because that lets you avoid any damage to the leather, its surface finish, and the color of its dye. Opt instead for 'passive' treatments that either use fresh air to dilute and eventually remove the smell over time, or controlled treatments such as what I did with baking soda, which absorb at least some of the smell but don't chemically affect the leather and never directly touch it. How ozone might alter/change/affect leather, I don't know. It might work fine and remove the smell and leave the leather unaffected, or perhaps not.

Good luck!