Like most things, cleaning is essential, especially when dealing with a natural product such as leather. How often you clean your leather will have a big impact on how long your leather lasts and the condition it maintains over time.
How Often Should I Clean My Leather?
This question is best answered by understanding what impact the elements have on your leather. By 'elements' we are referring to sun, heat, rain, snow, cold, mud, dust and foreign matter.
The more elements your leather is exposed to the more care it needs. Cleaning of leather only really needs to be done when leather is exposed to seawater, mud, dust and foreign matter. This is because you need leather pores free of contaminates to properly hydrate and protect the leather. Also leather which has contaminates left on it will quickly deteriorate the quality of the leather. This is due to elements drying out the leather (dirt, dust, salt) and also in some cases preventing the leather from drying and causing mold (clay, organic matter).
A good rule of thumb to cleaning leather is when you see a visible build up of elements, it is time to clean.