The lining of your bag smells of last week's lunch and the outside is covered in smudges. Anyone wondering whether a leather bag can go in the washing machine is hoping for a cold cycle and a low spin. That programme doesn't exist. One wash does more damage than ten years of daily use.
The short answer: no, a leather bag cannot go in the washing machine, not on wool, not on handwash, not in a wash bag, and faux leather can't either. You clean the lining inside out with a damp cloth, the outside with a slightly damp cloth and no soap, and then feed the leather afterwards. It takes fifteen minutes and the bag survives.
Leather bag in the washing machine: what actually goes wrong?
Leather is a hide stabilised by tanning and made supple with fats. Inside a washing machine, four things happen at once, and any one of them on its own is enough. The water washes the fats out of the fibres, and without fat, leather dries out into something like cardboard: hard, with cracks along the creases. On top of that, leather shrinks when it gets wet and then dries quickly. A bag that was 30 cm wide can come out at 28, with a lining that hasn't shrunk to match and so bunches up.
Then there's how the bag is built. Base boards, reinforcements in the handles and the edge along the zip are often glued. Warm water and an hour of tumbling loosen that glue, and the bag comes out with a base that ripples and a flap that hangs limp. With vegetable-tanned leather, the colour sits partly in the tannins themselves, and that runs, leaving the bag patchy with a brown tinge on the lining. Chrome-tanned leather with a pigment coating holds its colour better, but the coating cracks instead.
Faux leather has no fats to wash out, but it does have a PU layer on a fabric or foam backing, and that layer comes away in warm water. After a wash it flakes. So it isn't a question of real versus fake. A washing machine isn't meant for any bag with a leather-like surface.
How to clean a leather bag properly
Start with the lining, since that's usually where the problem sits. Empty the bag completely, including the zip pockets, and turn the lining inside out if the bag allows it. Give it a shake over the bin. Wipe the lining with a well wrung-out cloth in lukewarm water with a drop of mild washing-up liquid, then go over it once more with water alone. Leave the bag open until the lining is dry, usually a few hours. If a smell lingers, an open dish of baking soda left inside overnight helps.
The outside needs less water than you'd think. A slightly damp soft cloth, with no soap, is enough for most marks. Work in small circles and dry off afterwards with a dry cloth. Soap and all-purpose cleaner strip the fats from the leather, and that's exactly what you want to avoid. For stubborn marks from ink, grease or make-up, there's a specific approach for each, which you'll find in the step-by-step guide to removing stains from leather.
Once the leather is dry, work in a thin layer of leather balm or conditioner with a soft cloth. Leave it to soak in for an hour and buff off any excess. This puts back what the damp cloth took out. Which products are suitable for this is covered on our leather care page.
The bag's already been washed: now what?
It's happened, and the bag is sitting wet and crumpled in the drum. Don't wring it and don't hang it up by the handles. Pat it dry with a towel, stuff it loosely with newspaper or towels so it fills out to shape again, and let it dry at room temperature, away from heating and sunlight. Allow two days. Change the newspaper after half a day. The full approach for soaked leather is in what to do when your leather bag gets wet.
Feeding the leather comes next, and that isn't done in one go. Apply a thin layer of leather balm, wait a day, and repeat that three or four times over the course of a week, until the leather bends again without cracking. Dried-out leather absorbs fat slowly, and too much at once just sits on the surface as a greasy film. How to bring that suppleness back step by step is covered in restoring dried-out leather.
Be honest about the outcome. Shrinkage doesn't come back, glue that's let go doesn't reset, and colour that's run stays run. A vegetable-tanned leather bag washed once can, with patience, become usable again, but it won't be what it was. If that has you looking at a new leather bag, take one lesson with you: leather gets cleaned with a cloth and fifteen minutes, never a programme.
