Saving/Protecting (P)'Leather'

The other day when I dressed Miyu in the Sasara white gothic outfit the shoes started flaking a bit. And I've seen photos of other "leather" things do the same thing with age. I was wondering if there was something I could do to protect those kinds of things, like Miku's and Sailor Moon's sleeves, gloves, and boots, as well as other shoes, belts, and outfit accessories. I was thinking maybe a clear shoe polish so it won't stain the dolls. I've used shoe polish in general to protect my shoes made of like material.

I've been wondering the same thing after seeing various pictures of cracked shoes. I don't want that to happen and these things cost too much for that especially with some aftermarket shoe prices and also are hard to find to begin with so I don't want to have to get replacements. Some of the shoes with straps I find you have to stretch them to get them closed too probably making this worse.

 

On real people shoes, generally this happens where they flex with use, but I've noticed on the DD shoes some of them stretch a bit with the widest part of the feet so I expect the same thing may happen there.

 

I wonder if "saddle soap" would do anything? That is supposed to condition leather.

 

OTOH, I also wonder if any product that leaves something in the material could then leech out onto the vinyl of the doll and be yet another source of staining.

 

The items like the Miku sleeves and her boots are a different kind of material, or at least I think they are. You can see a sort of fabric texture to them and I believe they are a cloth material that is somehow coated with plastic. I think, but again am not sure, that it's the same or similar to what's used for "leather shorts" like in Sheryl's Military outfit.

 

Volks sells so many types of maintenance items it's surprising they don't have something for this.

I'm curious about this as well, I've seen some older Volks outfits for sale with leather/pleather parts that had disintegrated inside the package. I've also got some old Volks shoes with leather/pleather bows that just crumbled on their own. At this point I'm assuming shoes and similar items have a fixed lifespan, but storage tips to maintain them longer would be great!

I'm curious about this as well, I've seen some older Volks outfits for sale with leather/pleather parts that had disintegrated inside the package.

I've noticed this too; one of the items I keep track of on Mandarake is Nami's (expensive) guitar set. One of the unopened ones they have mentions the pleather case for it is disintegrating.