Greasy leather.

Horse Daughter bought some reins over two years ago. The owner said they had just been oiled. In what, crude oil? I have never encountered such impervious grease! Daughter couldn't use them. Too slippery to hold onto. She hung them on a building for the grease to 'weather off'. I found them the other day, a little white mold had taken up residence, but they were as slick as the day she hung them up, two years ago!.

What is this stuff?

It has no discernible odour. It's black. You can scrape a pile of it off with your fingernail. It is impervious to soap.

I finally soaked the reins in the hottest water with Sunlight dish soap and Watkins degreaser (love that stuff!). That seemed to loosen it a bit so I could viciously srub it off with rags. But it still came down to mechanically rubbing that junk off, because no way was it going to let go otherwise.

The reins are still very slick. Short of going at them with turpentine or paint thinner, I'm not sure what else to do. Who on earth would put such horrid goo on any leather item you need to keep a grip on? If I ever find out what it is, I might consider treating my wood siding with it, I'm sure it will outlast wood stain.

It might be vegetable oil. We had a set of reins that were soaked in it. It very slowly deteriorates the leather.

I actually cleaned the oil off some reins once by immersing them in the oil I wanted to use, and heating it up. The cruddy oil loosened and sloughed off. I took out the hot oily reins and wiped them clean with a rough rag.

I am surprised that vegetable oil will deteriorate leather. It seems kind of inert and harmless. How can it ruin leather? Olive oil is supposed to be good for leather. And your salad.

The hot water, soap and degreaser seem to have worked. The reins are mostly crud free. Whatever that stuff was, it should never have been put on leather! Sheesh!

I'm not sure why vegetable oil breaks it down. Maybe because when you think about it, vegetable oil can go bad itself. I remember those reins just falling apart and when we took them to a leatherworker, he pretty much scolded Shannon for using vegetable oil on them. Every item of tack she used it on felt the same over the years. Greasy and kind of crumbly on the edges. We couldn't get it off and ended up throwing out everything she put it on.