How to Make Your Own Leather Conditioner

You can make a leather conditioner that really works with just a few ingredients. Our saddle soap recipe includes a bar of goat milk soap, water, beeswax, neatsfoot oil, and tallow. Use it to moisturize and protect your horse tack or leather boots and accessories.

Cowboy boot with a rag and homemade leather conditioner

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We go through a lot of saddle soap around here with horses and countless pairs of boots. Instead of constantly buying it, I decided to start making my own since we have a lot of the supplies readily on hand.

Here is my recipe for a homemade leather conditioner that works well to moisturize and protect not just horse tack, but leather boots and accessories too!

Leather Conditioner Ingredients

Natural oils and waxes make ideal leather conditioners. I use handmade goat milk soap as the base of my saddle soap. The soap that I make is a simple cold process recipe consisting of goat milk, lye, coconut oil, and olive oil.

Beeswax provides a protective barrier on your leather and makes it shine. As a beekeeper, I have access to wax and render it from the cappings from the honey harvest. For more information on rendering beeswax, click here to read my other article.

Neatsfoot oil is great for softening hardened, dry leather. It’s important to be aware that this ingredient can darken light colored leather. There isn’t very much neatsfoot oil in my recipe, so I haven’t had any issues with discoloration after use.

Tallow is the secret ingredient in my saddle soap. It penetrates deep into the leather and helps make it more flexible and resilient. I render my own tallow from suet from cattle and goats that we butcher. For step-by-step directions for dry rendering tallow, click here.

Water is used in our leather conditioner as a carrier for the other ingredients and to make it soft and easy to apply. The consistency of this saddle soap is like mousse!

Leather Conditioner Recipe

130 grams (3 parts) goat milk soap
86 grams (2 parts) beeswax
258 grams (6 parts) water
43 grams (1 part) tallow
43 grams (1 part) neatsfoot oil

I weighed a bar of my goat milk soap and went from there to determine the amounts of the other ingredients. You can create ratios for your saddle soap by using the parts listed above.

This recipe creates about 30 fluid ounces of saddle soap.

Materials Needed for Making Homemade Leather Conditioner

Use a kitchen scale to measure the ingredients and a rubber spatula for stirring. Using a cheese grater to grate the soap and beeswax into small pieces expedites the melting process. A candle pouring pot is a great place to make the leather conditioner, the spout is helpful for filling tins. If you don’t have a candle pouring pot, an old saucepan will work too. Just don’t use something that you still use for cooking, the pot will be hard to clean after this!

I use a double-boiler method to melt my saddle soap ingredients. The use of indirect heat helps prevent overheating; you don’t want to scald or boil natural oils and waxes. To make a double-boiler, I fill my large saucepan with water and put it on the stove, then put the candle making pot inside it.

You will want to pour your saddle soap into containers that are easy to use. I like using eight-ounce tins with a screw on lid. They are shallow but still hold quite a bit, have a wide opening for easy access, and close securely.

Directions for Making Homemade Leather Conditioner

Start warming water in the large saucepan to be your double-boiler.
Weigh your bar of soap on a kitchen scale to determine the ratio of other ingredients needed. For example, my bar of soap weighed 130 grams and I wanted it to be 3 parts of the whole recipe so I divided it by 3 to determine what 1 part should be (43 grams).
Measure out the amount of beeswax needed.
Using a cheese grater, grate the bar of soap and the premeasured beeswax into the candle pouring pot. If you use pelleted beeswax, you don’t have to grate it, just add it to the candle pot.
Add the required amount of water to the grated soap and beeswax in the candle pouring pot.
Put the candle pouring pot with the soap, beeswax, and water into the double-boiler. Heat until these ingredients are melted, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula.
Turn the burner off and remove the candle pouring pot from the double-boiler. Now, add the required amount of tallow and neatsfoot oil. Tallow has a low melting point and will melt readily when added to the hot liquid.
Stir until the mixture is homogeneous.
Using the spout on the candle pouring pot, pour the liquid leather conditioner into tins. Be careful, it will be hot!
Let the tins sit, undisturbed, for about 2 hours to fully harden.
Use your homemade saddle soap!

Directions for Using Homemade Leather Conditioner

First, make sure your leather is clean and free from dirt, manure, etc.
Using a soft cloth (an old t-shirt works well), dip into your tin of homemade leather conditioner. You don’t need very much!
Rub the conditioner into your leather with a gentle, circular motion.
Continue to reapply in this manner until the whole item is evenly covered and fully moisturized and protected.
Allow the conditioner to absorb into the leather for at least 30 minutes.
Use a clean, dry cloth to buff the leather and enhance its shine.
Repeat this process every three to six months, or as needed to keep your leather functioning and looking its best!