How to wash a leather jacket at home?

I have washed 3 suede jackets and a leather motor cycle jacket in a front load washing machine on the gentle cycle. For all 4 I used carpet shampoo (pet formula). All of them turned out well. Here are a couple of tips: 1) Turn the jacket inside out. You really want to clean the liner anyway. 2) On the suede jackets I tumbled dried them to just damp on no heat. This seemed to keep the suede supple. 3) I added a cup of lemon juice to the rinse cycle. 4) I did not use any kind of hair conditioner. I purchased the leather biker jacket at Goodwill for $20 to use as a welding jacket in my shop. I got tired of the deoderizing spray smell they use so I washed it just like the suede. I did tumble dry on low warm, inside out, and that did shrink it to a very nice fit for me. Most of the seams lost a bit of there finish and had a little bit of a grey look instead of the black look... ahhh... it's a shop jacket... who cares. I got a wild hair and decided to hit the grey spots with kiwi black shoe dye and then kiwi black shoe polish. BIG mistake! It looks too nice to wear in the shop any more!!!! Seriously it does look very nice but I'm not really a motor cycle jacket type person. The shoe polish put a very nice shine back on the leather and gave it a bit of suppleness. I might try a bit of leather oil sometime. The suede jackets seem more amenable to being cleaned at home with better results and less work. The dye on the suede jackets I have doesn't seem to wash out like the edges on the glossy leather jacket.

I used Mouse’s method above of washing my old leather jacket with using regular 'shampoo' in the wash cycle, and rinse in Cream hair rinse like she said. Plus I wanted to shrink it, so I put it in the drier. It worked great and here are the photos to prove it. You can see that in the before photos the sleeve length is about 2” longer. I would not have tried this on a slick leather jacket that I wanted to stay like new, but for this old warn leather jacket it now has new life and I’m not embarrassed by the jackets bad smell anymore. Thanks Mouse!

I partially tried Mouse's idea. My girlfriend's cat had taken a leak on the inside of my leather jacket. Heh. So I used PURE ayre odor eliminator for all pets. I believe it is a food-grade enzyme solution that I bought at my local health food grocery store. I soaked the inside of the coat, let it sit a few days. Repeated. Eventually the coat had the smell from the PURE ayre solution... which is also odd. Then I thoroughly smeared some baby shampoo over the affected (stinky) areas with my hand. Then I rinsed out the baby shampoo with hot water. Voila! The coat now smells better than ever. I figured that a leather coat is designed to endure water... and like Mouse said, shampoo is designed to treat organic matter (hair, as well as hide, or leather). I actually don't think that's true of most shampoos though, personally. Most shampoos are full of all kinds of gnarly chemicals that very well could stain or harm a coat, perhaps. But baby shampoo is designed to be gentle, so I suspected it wouldn't harm my jacket. Anyway, I'm thrilled to have my good-smelling jacket back, and thanks to Mouse for the tips.

You dont. You can use a damp cloth, and wipe it off, but leather coats cannot be washed. Take it to a dry cleaner instead.

You can't, if you spilled something on it, quickly wipe it off, with a damp wash towel.+5

Read following leather care tips http://www.leathericon.com/leathercare.aspx

Don't do it. Take it to the cleaners even if you have to eat beans for a week.

Leather jackets are to be handled with care. If you are using it roughly , you might get its glow and look gone. There are some tips that always has to be followed . check out for leather care tips here..... http://www.leathericon.com/leathercare.aspx This May help you better answering your question.

Well... I am not going to pretend that cleaning your own leather is a good idea. If you don't want to create a bigger issue with your leathers or furs you should have them professionally cleaned. There are so many factors that can cause issues that if you don't understand you can really mess them up more. I speak from experience. I found an online company that cleans leather and they even have some good information on their site as well. It isn't all about doing business with them, they really want you to have the knowledge, but if you wanted to do business with them you could. Spotlessleather.com Pretty neat site... You can order your cleaning service right on their site. Check it out!