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vieja_gw

?clean oil stain on leather couch

vieja_gw
17 years ago

The oil from my husband's hair has made a big dark stain on the back of our leather couch when the towel on the back slipped off. Is there ANY remedy now to remove this stain? It is a dark leather & the stain is darker!

Appreciate any suggestions!

Comments (7)

  • monaw
    14 years ago

    Have you tried "Saddlesoap"? It's used to clean leather saddles.

    After you get it clean, you should shave your husband's head! :)

  • mcmann
    14 years ago

    Many leather cleaners can darken the leather so try it on a small spot first. We ended up cleaning an entire chair when the cleaner darkened a spot and we tried to blend it in.

    Wow - I never thought I'd get to use this word in a sentence in this century - but your husband needs an antimacasser that stays in place. My Mom used to use an entire towel and tucked the bottom underneath the seat cushion to make it more secure.

  • vieja_gw
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    mcmann:I can't begin to even pronounce it!! ha

    Yes,the towel on the headrest came after the fact ... if we get a new couch some day I will be sure to velcro a LONG towel on the back/headrest!!

    monaw: well, the head problem may be solved in the not too distant future as Nature has begun to solve the hair problem to his dismay! Will keep the towels on the headrests though for any guy that may visit that still has his hair!

  • mcmann
    14 years ago

    vieja - too funny - for some reason that word has always stayed with me.

    Macassar was an oil used on hair that became popular in Victorian England - think of all of those doilies that were on the chair backs.

  • monaw
    14 years ago

    vieja,
    good thing Nature is on your side. Although you still may need an "antimacassar"! hehehe

    mcmann, I was interested in your comment and looked up history of doilie:

    "Some people call a doily used on furniture an antimacassar. This word arose in the mid-19th century and demonstrates what those ornamental coverings did: they protected the furniture from macassar. Macassar was the name given to a hair oil made very popular in the early 19th century. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. Apparently exotic hair oil was quite the rage in the first half of the 19th century, another popular hair pomade being made from bear fat! (This gave rise to the curious practice of placing stuffed bears outside English barber shops.) The antimacassar is also known as a tidy, which term came into use at about the same time".

    I can just picture all the oily headed people...

    It's interesting that the doilies went from the back of sofas to tabletops....
    perhaps they were too pretty to toss out when oily head was no longer popular! :)

  • vieja_gw
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    WOW1 What a history lesson I'm getting about oily heads from my ? about the dark spot on our leather sofa back! Really interesting & I do remember my grandmother in her Iowa farmhouse had doilies covering the arms of chairs, backs of chairs, table tops, etc. & all of her's she had crocheted herself too in her '?spare time'!

  • monaw
    14 years ago

    I think I'll crochet a doily in honor of your grandmother and mine! :)

    There must be something about it that satisfies the soul, otherwise they wouldn't have made so many of them! ?