[Neil Mc Anulty]

Has anyone used the colour balm from furniture clinic? Used it recently on a sun dyed aniline and it made no difference at all. Would a dye have been more successful?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

On lightly faded like mine at hone I use balm successfully but on a sun faded it's a dye in my opinion, me and Mike H did one at LTT and it was quite easy but a little messy also we had Andy to over look us so you feel more confident.

Shaun

[LTT Leathercare]

Balms are pigments in a carrying agent so are not really the correct product to use on aniline leathers and the amount of colour they contain is very limited so often do not give any real results. 
Balms are DIY products but we have had many customers come to us who have tried to use balms on their furniture and they have made no difference at all - not what they expected when they purchase the product

Aniline dyes are 'dyes' as opposed to pigments and the strength of colour can be adjusted for the best results.
The aniline dyes are very easy to use and as they soak deep into the leather there is no fear of any sort of failure with them. 
Whilst I agree that the process may be a little messy it can be successfully done in a customers house and we do sell the dyes to consumers for continued use so there should be no real fear of using them.
There are different types of aniline dyes sold, we now have a water based one as well as a solvent base.  The carrying agent also will dictate their ease of use, some are sold as a type of gel which is particularly difficult to work with as getting an even absorption is tricky.

Hope this helps

[Mike Halliday]

here's the one me and shaun did

http://www.henryhalliday.co.uk/html/leather.html

[Ben Staerck]

Neil,

The balm can work very well, but the leather needs to be dried out and absorbant so that it can soak in. A lot of time when aniline leather is damaged by the sun, the lacquer is still intact and only the dye has faded, meaning the balm cannot permeate the lacquer and so not colour the leather. This lacquer would then need to be removed so that the leather could be properly dyed again.