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Taking Care of your Leather Straps
Taking care of your watch straps is a must, there is no other way around it. Keeping it sparkly clean will ensure your watch looks its best, and maintain its value. If it is taken well care of, the watchband would no doubt last longer than others.
Maintenance of your leather straps is important, however, ensuring that your watch straps aren't being handled carelessly is also another important thing.
Here are some tips to handle your watch straps properly:
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Wearing your watch 24/7 can be a bad habit, you need to give your leather straps a breather--like taking it off before you head to bed.
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Sure, your watch may be waterproof in every aspect, however, if it's in constantly getting in touch with water, the leather will weaken faster.
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Keeping your strap too tight will put more stress on it, and it will stretch more. This will also affect your blood circulation too, you know (tsk tsk).
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Wrenching your leather strap in a sharp angle would wear it down quicker, thus, pay more attention when adjusting those straps!
Alright, let's move on to the maintenance section now. Firstly, let's discuss about the steps to clean your leather straps, and the things you'll need in the process. These steps and items do not work with unfinished leather straps!
How to do?
Step 1: Using Cotton Cloth to Wipe your Leather Straps
Wiping off the moisture and dirt frequently is essential, since moisture is easily trapped between your skin and your watch strap. Thus, when you wipe your leather straps, the dirt will be wiped away, which will ensure that the dirt will not scratch your leather straps.
Step 2: Scrubbing your Leather Straps with Soap and Water
Use a damp cloth to clean your leather straps instead of dousing it in water, after which, use a tiny amount of moisturizing hand soap (not too moisturizing!) and scrub your leather straps.
You can proceed on to clean the straps with another clean, damp cloth and then, you can move on and dry it thoroughly. Remember to let your straps to air dry before you wear your watch.
Step 3: Using your Leather Conditioner
Firstly, what does a leather conditioner do? It allows leather to last longer as it keeps your leather straps moist, and keeping it shiny and soft too. For this step, just simply follow the instructions written on your leather conditioner package.
Step 4: What's Next?
Now, the steps written in here are just used as a basic advice to clean your leather straps. Thus, to ensure your leather is properly taken care of, know the type of leather your straps are made from.
Smooth leather, suede leather, nubuck leather and so on, there are many different kinds of leathers out there, and the best advice comes from manufacturer themselves.
These are just guidance for you on cleaning the watch strap. It may not works on every pieces and it's for each owner to decide what is best for cleaning and maintaining their watch strap.