How to make leather balm or polish with only 2 ingredients!

TL:DR: tutorial video at the end of the article.

How to make leather balm - recipe — A leather balm recipe using beezwax and neatsfoot oil

Respecting and taking care of your leather items

Taking care of your leather product is essential in making sure it will last a very long time. Leather is a wonderful material that can be surprisingly strong, useful and will, with time, develop a unique patina.

Very often, the reason leather fails is that it has become dry and brittle. Leather comes from a living material and is still alive in many aspects. However the fibers in the leather no longer have the oils they need to bend without breaking which is why it is essential to keep it in pristine condition!

Ingredients needed

As mentioned, all you’ll need to make this are two very basic ingredients - that many leatherworkers should already have in their shop.

Neatsfoot oil is a natural preservative for leather articles subjected to rugged use and outdoor exposure. It comes from the legs and hooves of cattle that are boiled to release the thick oils that help keep their legs warm in winter. Since the primary function of a neatsfoot oil is to replace the evaporated oils in leather, replacing the oils with other natural animal oils is best.

Beeswax is a natural wax that comes from bees. They produce it in glands and it is collected by worker bees and used to build the well-known 8-sided polyhedrons that they use to store honey as well as their larvae. It’s a great lubricant and waterproofing material that can be found as hard cakes in purified and non-purified versions. For our use, the non-purified version will work just as well as the purified version - the only advantage of which is that it comes in a white color.

Warming and mixing

The recipe for making leather balm or leather wax is very simple and only differs in the proportions of each ingredient used.

Before starting you will need a few tools to help you in this:

weighing scales
beaker with pouring beak
wood skewer
container(s)

You may also consider covering your work surface with aluminium foil: it will protect the surface against the heat of the oils and waxes, as well as be easily disposed of afterwards, taking care of any spills.

Heat the mix until the wax melts in the oil

Mix ratio

As mentioned before this is a very simple recipe and the difference between obtaining a balm and a harder polish or wax is in the ratio used.

Leather balm

To make leather balm you will need to mix 1 part beeswax and 5 parts neatsfoot oil.

Leather wax or polish

To make leather wax or polish you will need to mic 1 part beeswax and 2 parts neatsfoot oil.

Mixing the ingredients

Place the beaker on the weighing scales and poor in the neatsfoot oil then add the beeswax. Place the mix in a double boil until you see the beeswax completely dissolve in the oil - alternatively this can be done in a microwave oven.
CAUTION: the final mix will be very hot and dangerous. Take every precaution possible to avoid direct contact.
Using the wood skewer, gently mix the heated oil and wax to insure that the mix is homogenous.
Slowly (and very carefully) pour the final mix into your container and let the mix cool down completely before use.

Applying to leather

Always test the product on a part that is not visible to see how it will react before applying to the hole piece.

Once your new leather balm or leather wax is cooled completely, gently apply it to the leather using your fingers or a clean cloth. I like using my fingers as the heat from my hands helps the oils and waxes penetrate the leather deeply, massaging the leather gently will help in this.

Once you’ve applied the product, gently remove the excess using a clean cloth.

Your leather should now be nicely nourished and ready to face the elements!