I just received two beautiful leather couches. Imagine my horrific surprise when I sat down and the stench of cigarette smoke filled my lungs. We were so sad. I ran off to google how to get smoke smells out of leather. After all it's a little more tricky then other fabrics. Here are some of the ideas we found that helped. While I'm not sure which one worked, or if all of them together finally helped, we do have smoke free couches finally.
1. Pure Vanilla Extract sprayed over the entire couch. Let sit and soak in. This is what antique dealers use to help smells.
2. Vinegar - while the smell is not as lovely as the vanilla, it does seem to help a lot. Make sure to spray the undersides of cushions also.
3. Baking soda - It can become your new best friend. For our leather couches we put tons of baking soda under the cushions, and then unzipped all the cushion and poured a cup in each one. I left the baking soda on the underside of the couch for a week and then vacuumed it up.
4. Carpet fresh scented sodas. Yes, it's not as green as I would have liked, but I poured bottles of it under our couch, on the carpet so that the scents would travel up through the couch.
5. As a last ditch effort to rid the remaining smell we did purchase an ozone generator. Be very cautious when using these. At low settings they are safe, but high settings require you to leave the house along with all your pets.
After all this is done, conditioning your leather couches with a leather condition is best. It helps to keep the leather smooth. Vaseline is a great alternative to the chemical laden conditioners.
