Why Oil Ruins Your Baseball Glove

Walk into any dugout and someone has a tip: olive oil, petroleum jelly, mink oil, shaving cream, baby oil. Oil feels like it's helping because the glove gets soft fast. But a lot of what you're feeling is the leather breaking down.

What heavy oil does to leather

• It oversaturates. Leather can only take in so much. Extra oil soaks deep into the fibers and has nowhere to go.
• It makes the glove heavy and floppy. An oil-soaked glove loses its structure. The pocket gets sloppy and the fingers flop.
• It darkens the leather. Heavy oil can permanently darken a glove and leave blotchy spots.
• It attracts dirt. An oily surface holds on to dust and clay, which grinds into the leather every time you use it.
• Kitchen oils can go bad. Food oils like olive or vegetable oil can turn rancid inside the leather and start to smell.
• It can be hard on the laces. Over-oiled laces can stretch and weaken.

What leather actually needs

Leather needs a little moisture, not a bath. A light conditioner restores what the leather loses to sun, sweat and dirt without drowning it. Lanolin, the natural moisturizer in sheep's wool, is a good example. It softens and protects leather in thin coats.

How to condition the right way

1. Clean the glove first so you're not sealing dirt in. Here's how to clean a baseball glove.
2. Put a dime-size amount on a sponge, not on the glove.
3. Work it in with small circles until the glove is covered.
4. Let it sit about an hour, then buff off the extra with a cloth.
5. Repeat a few times a season, or when the leather starts to feel dry.

Thin coats. Soft and supple, not soggy.

Already over-oiled a glove?

Wipe off any surface oil, let it sit somewhere warm (not hot) and dry for a few days, and stop adding product. Some of it can come back. Next time, go light.

That's why we built the Glove Spa Kit around a lanolin conditioner instead of heavy oil. Clean it right. Feed it right.