Love my leather (textile) jacket

[vifferman]

Never wash them in ordinary laundry powder. It's mostly phospourous bulking agent and it clogs the gaps between the fibres wrecking the breathability and allows water to wick through (leaks). Use a sports wash obtainable from sports goods stores.

Yeah, what he said; try SnoSeal SportWash from an outdoor sports store like R&R or Motomail.

Basically, there are 2 systems, jackets that use a waterproof outer layer and ones (like Spidi) that use a tough outer layer and a waterproof membrane underneath.

Make that 3 (three) systems. The Teknic gear has an outer layer that is breathable, and in the rain the water runs down mostly outside the fabric, but some runs down in the fabric, and out the bottom. This sort of fabric MUST be washed with SnoSeal.

Now that my jacket is mongrelised, I spray it with silicon to make it waterproof on the outside, as the leather bits need to be waterproofed anyway, so I figured it was easier to just waterproof the whole thing.
The friggin thing looks dirty all the time now, due to all the crap from traffic fumes and road spooge, and possibly some dye from the leatherybits. It also really stinks when it gets wet.

And yes, I do just bung it in the washing machine, but don't use normal washing powder as it contains lots of caustic which is bad for leather. It's a bit awkward to wash, as even after I've removed the hard armour, there's still the soft armour and back protector making the thing a bit bulky and stiff.

I'm currently out of SnoSeal, so I use detergent for woolens instead. Takes a couple of days to dry properly, due to the leatherybits and multiple layers, then I use a whole can or two of Scotchgard or similar all over it.