January '04 Motorcycle Consumer News magazine looked at 24 leather conditioning products. They rated this stuff on:

Ease of use
Appearance
Ingredients
pH

6 page article discussing oils, waxes, cleaning, importance of neutral pH, etc. Also, this magazine does not accept advertising dollars. Notably absent was 303 Aerospace Protectant which I use on an alternating schedule with another product.

I was only going to list the recommended goops, but I figured some of you may want to know how your favorite conditioner fared in this test. With their point system:

20 Lexol conditioner/preservative
19 Blue Magic Leather cream conditioner
18 Tenderly leather softener
16 ArmorAll leather care
16 Meguiar's gold class
15 Turtle Wax cleaner and cond.
15 Vireo clean. and cond.
14 Johnson's Premium leather lotion
14Chilhowee buffalo butter cond. (from smiley bison? jk)
13 Nikwax products (2)
12 Eagle One leather cond.
11 3M refresh
10 Montana leather oil
10 Harness Honey

and some others. Nix to saddle soap. Nix to silicones. Nix to waxes. I would go w/any of the top three but I ain't givin' up on the 303 every other time.

Drat! Somehow with McAfee protection and AOL spam blocker I cannot do smilies anymore.

 

Got a smiley, but not from the box on the left.
Forgot to add this--MCN tried to do a durability test, water, outdoors, scratch resistance, etc. Couldn't prove much in one summer, so they will do a followup in a year or two.

 

BC,

Is there a specific reason why you only use 303 every other time? Does frequent use of 303 damage anything?

I just got some and planned on using it soon...

 

mc, not really. I'm confident that the 303 is safe and effective. I just want to be sure all bases are touched so I use the Lexol also. So far the two products seem to be compatable. The UV protection of the 303 is a plus. Since I don't condition the interior as often as I should, I gotta be sure to use the best I can find to make up for my laziness. Sieze ya.