Leather Seat Turning Blue
I’ve run across this one a lot lately. Leather seats turning a shade of Blue on the lighter colored tan and gray leather seats. It’s what I call “Suit Blue”.
What this really is, is when the leather turns a blue color where your back, butt, or arm rests on the wet leather and the dye from your clothing is then transferred to the leather.
The dye from your clothing is actually dyeing the leather in your car. The leather soaks it up like a sponge, like I’ve always said “What you put on leather stays in leather”, and as you see it’s true.
Whats really bad about this is there’s is no cleaner to remove this from the leather without damaging the leather or the leather’s original dye, at least not one that I know about. Your only solution to this is to have the seats, armrests, ect. resurfaced or dyed to bring it back to it’s original color.
I’d have to say the cars that I see this on the most are Lexus, Toyota, and Infinity, all have light interiors with a soft leather that just soaks it up.
I worked on and Infinity G35 today that had it bad, the door panel all the way down was blue not just where the guys arm was. It dyed the plastic part below the leather wrapped armrest, that was pretty surprising to me. Usually it’s the leather seats, armrests, and console lids are what gets the most damage.
This is one problem that there’s not an easy quick solution too, other then maybe using a towel to sit on when your out in the rain or if your out on a hot day.
When your leather seat turns blue from the dye in your clothing don’t try to remove it with solvents or harsh cleaners, all this will do is make a bad thing worse. All solvents will do is remove the original dye from the seat along with blue color and dry the leather out, causing it to crack later. Remember “what you put on leather stays in leather”. Just call your local automotive interior professional, like myself The Interior Guy, and have the leather seats, armrests, console lids, ect. dyed back to it’s original color and luster. This will not only save you time but money too. Why replace when you can resurface!
Talk to ya soon,
Mike – The Interior Guy
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