How to Clean Hair Oil off Leather Furniture

Leather furniture is sleek, sophisticated and usually more expensive than furniture made with traditional fabrics. Leather furniture is also comfy. Sometimes a long nap on your leather sofa is just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, if you forget to place a pillow behind your head and wake up with hair oil on the arm of your new leather sofa, you may question whether leather was the best choice. But before you purchase costly cleaning products to remove the hair oil, reach for products that you may already have on hand.

Step 1

Remove as much of the hair oil stain as you can with a paper towel. Fold the paper towel in half, and then half again, using each side of the paper towel to blot up the hair oil.

Step 2

Leave it alone. Sometimes, if you blot as much of the hair oil up as you can, the remaining oil will simply soak into the leather and disappear. It is not always necessary to treat the stain with anything more than blotting for this reason. However, if the hair oil stain remains after a week or so, give talcum powder a try.

Step 3

Pour talcum powder liberally over the stain. If you do not have talcum powder on hand, you can also use cornstarch from your kitchen's pantry.

Step 4

Work the talcum powder into the oil stain with your fingers and allow the talcum powder to remain on the hair oil stain overnight. The longer you leave it on the oil stain, the longer it will have to absorb it.

Step 5

Vacuum up the talcum powder in the morning. Use your vacuum's hose and brush attachment to remove all traces of the talcum powder. The talcum powder should have absorbed the stain. If not, repeat the process.