The Best Way to Care for a Leather Holster

Caring for your leather holster is as much an art and act of love as it is a skill. While some of the newer styles of holsters that are made of kydex or nylon are extremely easy to clean, leather holster care is more complex and requires special cleaning solutions, leather conditioners, and lubricants to keep it good as new. We wanted to ensure you have all the information you need to properly care for your leather holster, so we've put together the How-To Video at the bottom to guide you through the process.

Watch as product specialist George Poulos recommends a few of the best leather holster cleaning products for sale at OpticsPlanet and shows you how he applies them to carefully clean and care for his holster.

Galco's Leather Cleaner & Conditioner

First up, George takes you through caring for the outside of your leather holster. Galco Leather Lotion is a fantastic conditioner for taking care of those scratches that every leather holster gets over time. As he mentions, the leather lotion won't fix major scars. However, the common, everyday scratches that ruin the smooth look of your holster will clear up, and the leather will return to the supple, beautiful state it had when brand new. The procedure is very simple and doesn't take long, as you simply apply a bit of the lotion to the holster in a circular motion so it gets into every scratch from a few different angles. Make sure to apply a little extra to parts that bend or curve, such as the thumb break, as the leather lotion adds flexibility to moveable parts.

After applying the Galco Leather Lotion to your holster let it sit for a little while. You want the lotion to really set in. Then you simply buff up the holster a bit, and a big improvement will be apparent with each application. It's a good idea to repeat this process frequently, as doing so will prolong the life of your leather holster.

Maintaining the inside of your leather holster is a different story. Caring for the inside is more about maintaining the finish of your gun. For this, George recommends the Galco Draw-EZ Solution. This solution shortens the time it takes to break in your holster when you first get it (see our Breaking in a Leather Holster Guide for more info), but it also keeps the inside of your holster smooth after hard use so that you don't rub the finish off of your gun. Depending on your gun and the fit of the holster, there could be a lot of friction that will effect the finish. This is especially true for older guns, so make sure you regularly care for the inside of your holster as well as the outside.

George explains all this and more in greater detail in the Leather Holster Maintenance video below. So, be sure to check it out, and take a look at all of our gun cleaning equipment and holster accessories so you can get the most out of your firearm and holster!