Summarize

Howard Products’ highest quality polishes, waxes, and restorers are specifically developed, manufactured, and marketed in a broad range of niche antique and fine furniture care products designed to enhance its discerning customers’ home environments. 

Established by Douglas G Howard back in 1969, the market has come to expect a tradition of quality as Howard Products continues to pursue new and creative ideas with the potential to make any home a beautiful place to live. To that end, we recently had the perfect challenge to put one of Howard’s favourite Products, Leather Conditioner to the test.

From a Southern African perspective, the Boland is among the harshest environments for any product. Searing summer temperatures and severe UV-rich sunshine, and cold, damp winters are a challenge to any surface or component. One leather couch in our lounge gets full summer sunshine in the mornings and endures long summers well into the 30s inside the house. The harshest possible conditions and after ten years, it was, well, parched.

So how good is Howard Leather Conditioner? Our dried-out old faithful sofa was about to put it to the test. Designed to condition and protect smooth leather, Howard Leather Conditioner’s make-up sounds more like a beauty product than a hide treatment. Packed with lanolin, neatsfoot, coconut oil and aloe vera to condition the leather, it also protects it with carnauba and beeswax. Completely natural, Howard Leather Conditioner contains no harmful solvents or silicones. 

The creamy lotion-like conditioner penetrates, preserves, and protects smooth leather with its unique blend of deep nourishing emollients and natural waxes. It revives dried-out hide back to its soft, natural condition without becoming greasy or sticky. Howard Leather Conditioner is not suitable for suede or nubuck, but it’s ideal for any smooth leather couch, shoes, purses, car interiors, tack, saddles and more. So perfect for our old sofa.

The instructions suggest that we apply Howard Leather Conditioner with a soft cloth, massaging it into the leather. Then allow it to penetrate for at least five minutes before buffing with a clean, soft cloth. It tells us to test in an inconspicuous area first, to check results, and use sparingly, but often, whenever the leather looks or feels dry. 

Our couch was clean, so there was no need for Howard’s sister Leather Cleaner product. We duly did our test on the back of one of the seat cushions. The leather was so dry, that it was being sucked in at such a rate that it struggled to spread. So we wet the cloth and kept it damp from there. We turned the cushion over to do our before and after picture. Then, as our technique developed, we attacked each aspect of the couch with vigour.

The potion deeply penetrates the leather with a pleasing effect off the cloth and with a little elbow grease, it soon smothers the entire surface. After which it’s just a matter of massaging it in evenly across each leather surface. Interestingly, it is fine to the touch and your hands never feel grimy or dirty while applying Howard Leather Conditioner. Once done, just buff the whole thing with a soft dry towel, and voila. The pictures tell the rest of the story!

The transformation is incredible. Being 100% natural, Howard Leather Conditioner has a pleasant smell, but there’s no residual odour when done. Just the pure, fresh scent of leather. The hide also feels brand new again, rather than the hard and parched surface it had become. And it was all done in about an hour, in spite of the challenges of transforming this super-dry couch to fresh and new again.

Perhaps most impressive however, was how our hands looked and felt after applying Howard Leather Conditioner to the couch. Soft and smooth, as if we’d just used an expensive famous brand hand cream or lotion, even if this product has nothing at all to do with people’s skincare. Leather is however after all skin, so judging by our hands, Howard Leather Conditioner has to be very good for it. 

Of course now that our couch is conditioned, we look forward to maintaining it with Howard Leather Conditioner, with another rub planned a months or so and then six months from there. We’ll keep a close eye on how that affects it, and report back in the winter. Howard Leather Conditioner after all helps leather resist cracking, scuffing, and dry rot. Its natural waxes also help repel water and add protection.

Howard of course sells a broad range of highest quality polishes, waxes, and restorers, distributed throughout Southern Africa by Vermont Sales. From Leather Cleaner to this Leather Conditioner and Premium Leather Salve, Howard’s hide products spread to an Upholstery Cleaner and Citrus-Shield Premium Paste Wax.

Howard’s wood Products include its original Restor-a-Finish and Feed-n-Wax Wood Polish & Conditioner to Orange and Lemon Oil Wood Polishes, SunShield Wood Conditioner and Wood-N-Floors. Specialist wood products include Wax-it-All Food-Grade Wax, Cutting Board Cleaner and Oil, and Butcher Block Conditioner.

Howard Metal Polishes spread from Clean-A-Finish to Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish, Restor-A-Shine Polishing Compound and Pine-Ola Silver, and Copper & Brass Polishes. There’s also a Howard Chalk-Tique Powder Additive for Paint, Chalk-Tique Paste Wax and Super Fine Steel pads.

Howard Products is a is a Vermont Sales brand. Established in 1985, Vermont Sales offers a huge range of tool solutions from more than 50 leading, tried, tested, and guaranteed  brands. Available through well over 3,000 outlets across Southern Africa, and backed by the Vermont Sales Force, the company also offers comprehensive training across all its brands.  Learn more at vermontsales.co.za.