How to care for your bridle

In order to take care of our planet, we have chosen vegetable tanned leather for Finessebridles.® 
The leather and dye come from America. 

I want you to know a little about this as it affects how you care for your Finessebridles.®

TIPS & GUIDANCE for maintaining/cleaning your bridle:

  • Always apply leather grease to your new bridle before using it for the first time.
  • Never wash with saddle soap or wet wipes.
  • Use a damp cloth with water or leather cleaner to remove dark sweat marks. 
  • Use leather balm or oil once a week. If your horse sweats a lot, use it twice a week. Do not use large amounts of leather grease – just enough to lightly wipe over your bridle. 
  • If you use too much leather grease or oil, the stitching can become worn with time and damaged. This is true of all tanned leather.
  • Store the bridle in a dry temperate tack room. If this is not possible, make sure not to hang your FinesseBridles® directly above a damp surface.
  • If you have been riding in strong sunlight or rain, always treat with oil afterwards. 

In brief, if you take care of your FinesseBridles®, they will last a lifetime.

FinesseBridles® we use Vegetable tanning.

Vegetable tanning is best known in connection with exclusive shoes, bags, jackets and furniture.
The vegetable tanning agent is extracted from tree bark and various plant extracts, such as many different types of bark and roots that have a high tannic acid content, which softens the leather. Quite common everyday plants such as rhubarb, oak and chestnut are used on a large scale in the tanning process. The tanning process is very deep-acting and up to 80% of the tannic acid is absorbed by the skin. However, it is expensive and takes a long time: 45 days.  

  • The advantages are that we take better care of our planet and the people who work in the tanning industry.
  • The disadvantage is that the leather is not as resistant to moisture, sweat, water and sun. It dries faster and when leather becomes dry, it marks more easily (also called patina), but a scratch can be removed by applying leather grease.

HOWEVER, it is easy for you to maintain Finessebridles® so it can last a lifetime. 

 

Finessebridles® is not tanned with chrom.

Leather tanned with the heavy metal chromium (chemical tanning) ([Cr(H2O)6]2(SO4)3) is the most widely used tanning method, and up to 80% of all leather industries worldwide use this form of tanning.* This is due, among other things, to the fact that it is the cheapest method of tanning skin, but it is also the quickest. It only takes one day. The skin is soaked with hydrochloric acid and is tanned in a chromium sulfate solution which contains chromium III salts. These salts can be allergenic and cause chronic contact allergies.
To prevent the skin from being contaminated by bacteria during treatment, it is often treated with the chemical agent PCP, which is a substance that can cause damage to the liver, lungs and nervous system, even on brief contact. However, this is mainly a problem in the industry, as there is not much remaining in the finished product. However, I do not think it is nice to expose other people to this risk.  

  • The advantage is that this leather is more resistant to water, sweat, sun and moisture, which is very suitable for environments such as stables. 
  • It does not require a high level of leather care with leather grease, etc. 
  • I have already mentioned the disadvantages above. But another disadvantage is also that if the leather is scratched, it cannot be repaired with grease.

*kilde- https://mst.dk/kemi/kemikalier/regulering-og-regler/faktaark-om-kemikaliereglerne/krom-vi/