Dye running on wet leather

[rich pierce]

I bought a cheap 18th century style wallet/billfold at a rondy.  It's actually well constructed, machine sewn, and an attractive reddish brown color.  But the first time it got really wet (sweat) the colors were running.  Then last night it got really wet and it stained all the dollars and checks inside.  This reminded me how many times I have gotten leather where the dye leaches out when wet.  On this one, I washed it several times last night in soapy water, water with baking soda, water with vinegar, whatever I could think of to either get all the dye out or fix it in place.  No matter what I did, more and more dye leached out.  I got to diminishing returns, dried it overnight and this morning waxed it with neutral shoe polish.

Couple of questions.
1) is there a way to know if pre-stained or dyed leather is going to leach color?
2) Is there a way to fix the color if it's inclined to do this?
3) Is there a sure-fire way to get all that dye out so it won't leach again?
4) For staining leather on projects, what types of dyes leach so badly and should be avoided?

Obviously it is possible to dye leather and not have it leach.  Black shoes and white socks, for example.

[Mark Elliott]

Rich,

You think you had it bad.   I once bought a hat from a prominent maker that had a leather sweat band.   You guessed it!   After a day of shooting,  I had an orange head!   Not too nice.  Eventually,   all the stain sweated out what was going to sweat out.   I don't know why folks don't wash out their stained leather better.    I wash mine out with saddle soap.   You can't wash out everything, but you can get most of it out that is going to run.   The last thing I want is a brown or black stain on myself or my clothes after a day in the rain.  Of course,  a chemical stain like AQ or vinegar and iron is much more color fast than the alcohol and oil leather dyes around.

Mark E.

[Artificer]

I'm also wondering if the leather was oil tanned and/or stained over oil tan?

Gus

[T.C.Albert]

Just my observation, but I think the typical leather dyes we are generally used to using are analine suspensions...the pigment powders float in the chemical carrier...some penetrates the leather, but some powder also stays on the surface as the carrier dries...this surface powdering really bleeds if it gets wet, and continues to do so for a long time. The same thing happens if you use leather dye on wood (or home mixed analines too for that matter)...and just the moisture from your hands will make the wood bleed color from its unsealed surface giving you a nice case of orange hands...the answer on wood is sealing it with Danish oil or something similar...on leather its not so easy, and even if waxed and sealed with creams etc, and some bleed may not be preventable if analines are used. Vinegaroon type dyes chemically color the tannins in the leather itself, and the bleed is non-existant...unless its wet and comes in contact with non dyed leather...like fancy colored edge bindings etc...then the bleed or leach that occurs can turn the edging black...
TCA

[BrownBear]

I always wondered about dyes that bleed so easily, yet stain whatever they touch just about permanently. 

I bought cheap leather work gloves for branding, and when I pulled them off at the end of the day my hands were bright yellow from the wrists down.  And no amount of scrubbing with anything seemed to fade it.  I wandered around with yellow hands for close to a week before it finally wore off, but get those gloves even a little sweaty and they would stain anything they touched.

[T.C.Albert]

yep...its endemic to the commercial leather product industry too it seems...gloves, coats, brief cases, boots, saddles, hats, clothing...all the colors seem to run, and you never know if will happen to the piece you just bought till it does...higher grade vat dyed and stuffed commercial tannage seems to be run free..I have some beautiful drum dyed hide from Badger State tannery, but they closed...good veg tan tooling leather is natural russett...and is usually dyed by the craftsman, (us..) so we get to play with solving some of he same problems the industry wrestles with too when using commercial dyes etc...since its moisture that causes the bleeding the common solution is to try and seal or water proof the leather as much as possibe...but even that can present problems if over done..
TCA

[Richard/Ga.]

Sometimes rinsing the leather in alcohol several times, air drying, and treating the warm leather with a leather condition helps.

Often the alcohol causes the leather to shrink slightly during the drying process and the seams loosen up.

Richard/Ga.