Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Moldy Old Leathers

Four times since the contest, I’ve had to deal with cleaning leathers which were not tended to properly after a scene.  Frankly, this is embarrassing, since I should know better.

Three of them stem directly from the contest fantasy, with its ice cream.  Between just dealing with the contest, plus the food poisoning I was suffering from, and the trip to Lake Cushman the next day, I left my stuff from the contest in the suitcase rather than taking out and dealing with it.  I had liberally rinsed everything off from the ice cream after the fantasy, I thought.  When I took one of my vests out to wear it, I got to the bar and found a white fuzzy patch on the side.  Thankfully, that cleaned up easily in the bathroom.  My tall boots also showed some fuzz, and then I had to thoroughly hand-wash my Nasty Pig vest with the cloth lining.

Fortunately, mold doesn’t grow fast or furiously on leather, and neither piece is the worse for it — it was just growing on ice cream bits on the surface — but I will condition them to be sure.

In the other instance, I had misplaced a bin of my rubber gear after Rubbout back in April, but finally figured out where it was.  Pulling out the neoprene chaps, there was gunk along all the seams.  I had probably put them away slightly damp from sweat (piss, lube, cum, whatever) from the Saturday night play party.  (The bin had sat next to my computer all summer and I never caught a whiff of the mold, so it wasn't very serious.  It probably had been dead for months by the time I found it.  Everything else in the bin was in separate bags.)

Fortunately, there’s very little organic material in neoprene and nylon thread and piping, so there is no apparent damage.  A little Woolite and a low heat dryer and they were fine.

I fully embrace learning from your mistakes and turning things like this into teaching moments.  Since I’m doing a foodplay workshop in November, I will definitely include some of this in discussing clean up and food safety at the workshop.

And hey, cleaning mold off your leathers isn’t nearly as bad as cleaning off cat shit.  (But that's another story.)

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