Interzum, the world’s leading fair for suppliers to the furniture and interiors industry, will take place in Cologne from May 25 – 28. Many new products will have their world premiere at the fair, and visitors will also be able to see future-oriented materials for existing and new applications. At stand B011 in Hall 10.2, the leather-care specialists LCK of Ubstadt-Weiher, Germany, will be exhibiting their products, including the new Keralux intensive protection lotion with X-Shield from Lanxess.
This new, high-quality leather-care product, developed jointly by Lanxess’ leather technologists and LCK’s leather-care experts, protects leather from soiling. It is ideal for refurbishing leather furniture that was already treated with an anti-soiling finish during the manufacturing process and offers particular advantages for light-coloured leather furniture, as it helps it to retain its value. ‘Our aim is to look at leather in its entirety and make the production and use of leather as sustainable as possible,’ says Bianca Verstegen of Global Product Management Finishing in Lanxess’ Leather business unit. ‘For us that means not just high-quality and efficient products and optimized manufacturing processes but also leather as an end product and its use and sustainability.’
The current trend in high-quality leather furniture in particular is for pale colours and even white. As Jana Jörger, head of Marketing at LCK, explains: ‘Pale colors are in, as they make a room appear light, elegant and spacious. As suppliers of specialist leather-cleaning and care products, we can offer end users effective cleaners, but the best solution is to prevent the formation of stubborn stains from the outset.’
Leather experts from Lanxess have come up with an answer to this problem in the form of the X-Shield system, which contains soil-repellent fluoropolymers that largely protect the leather from soiling and staining right from the finishing stage. At the same time, the system also makes the surfaces easy to clean, while still satisfying even stringent fastness requirements. The individual components of the modular system can be combined with other suitable products from the Lanxess portfolio to meet the specific requirements of the particular customer.
Extensive trials have shown that the intensive protection lotion with the anti-soiling system from Lanxess improves the soiling behaviour of leather considerably. In the laboratory tests, soiled denim fabric was rubbed over pale-coloured leather in accordance with EMPA 128 using a crock meter. The denim caused noticeable stains on the untreated leather, while the leather pre-treated with Keralux intensive protection lotion with X-Shield showed little or no discolouration.
