Rawlings Columbia Blue Steerhide (2024) - Conditioner Coloring Test

[mkaufm1]

Just a starting post…

Thought I’d share something interesting or at least to me. I’m starting an experiment with coloring and conditioners. Gotta love the key chain samples.

Sample is still wet… will update dry samples before future coats.

Top Left - Ball Players Pro Balm
Top Right - Ball Players Balm Conditioner Lite
Bottom Left - Obenauf’s Heavy Duty
Bottom Right - Control Sample

 

[LaserArm]

Very cool test. Something interesting on SBF finally instead of "my last at bat".

 

[mkaufm1]

Here’s 24hrs after the first application when you usually see the questions from folks as to whether or not they ruined their glove. The Lite Conditioner has the edge on appearance impact at this point…still needs time to dry.

Timing wise, I’ll check again in about a week. My initial thought is this is more of a monthly interval than a weekly, but we’ll see how fast things go.

 

[Ballgluv_papa]

Here’s 24hrs after the first application when you usually see the questions from folks as to whether or not they ruined their glove. The Lite Conditioner has the edge on appearance impact at this point…still needs time to dry.

Timing wise, I’ll check again in about a week. My initial thought is this is more of a monthly interval than a weekly, but we’ll see how fast things go.

Chris at azglovelab on the IG has a story today comparing 5 conditioners on a large (scrap) piece of camel leather. Shows what happens at several time points after application. Fun stuff.

 

[mkaufm1]

Chris at azglovelab on the IG has a story today comparing 5 conditioners on a large (scrap) piece of camel leather. Shows what happens at several time points after application. Fun stuff.

I’ll claim first! Haha.

I like his stuff and agree with what he said about it being one of those common questions you see pop up so not surprised to see the coincidence. I kind of hope he provides an additional update after it has time to dry.

The thing I like with testing the blue leather is that it should highlight any yellowing with a green shift that you may not notice on tan colors. My goal is to run through a few rounds of application to see how it layers up.

I’ve been thinking about testing the little bit of Rawlings Glove Butter and Wilson Prostock (I expect this one to yellow) as well, but wanted to focus the test on the products that I’m currently using (I switched recently after asking folks what they were using b/c I’m basically out of Glove Butter). If anyone is super interested in these I can add them as well.

 

[mkaufm1]

One coat fully dried: The two things I noticed is that a) Ball Players Balm Lite Conditioner dried much lighter than the two waxed based balms (which makes sense in my mind given that the wax is filling in any pores); and b) the two formulations with wax seem to be equivalent in color and feel.



Second coat applied: The leather absorbed more of the Lite Conditioner in the second coat than the other two conditioners. The balms also feel like their conditioning is “more resilient”.



(Editted to imbed images… should have picked up on that sooner)

 

[mkaufm1]

Two coats complete. 1 week between each coat and the last coat has dried 1 week.

The BPB and Obenauf’s are both darker. There is some slight darkening with the BPB Lite, but that’s marginal and I likely wouldn’t have noticed it without the control quarter.

The wax products (BPB and Obenauf’s) are also, now, more reflective than the other two samples under bright light; neither is showing any sign of yellowing. Based on feel and some assumptions around the wax filling in porous areas, I’d wager that area is more water resistant… at the end of this trial, that’s something I want to test as well. My guess is the BPB Lite does as good of job conditioning, but the lack of wax is probably reducing it’s water resistant properties…this would be a trade off, not a negative, for it’s sustainment of color properties.

I’m planning to wait another week before applying a third coat. To see if there is further change in the wax based samples, but I’m wagering they will look exactly the same; the BPB lite may surprise me, though.