Alcantara is a synthetic material man-made.

A great deal of people thinks that Alcantara is suede and think leather cleaners will work on this material.

It was designed and made in the 1970’s and named after the company.

Alcantara is composed of about 68% polyester and 32% polyurethane, they claim it gives increased durability and stain resistance.

The material feels and looks like suede and a large number of people who get mixed up with this material is amazing, as it’s just a fabric.

It contains no leather content at all and should not be treated as leather in any shape or form.

With it being a material like product cleaning this can be problematic, but over the years we’ve tested many products and ways to clean this material.

We have found the best options to clean Alcantara are as follows.

You can use warm water in a spray bottle with a small amount of carpet cleaner mixed in with this and spray this onto the materials and allow it to dwell for a few minutes’s to break down any dirt and grime, then you can use a soft suede brush to lightly brush over the surface to remove any dirt and grime and use vacuum to remove any excess.

The other option is to use steam to clean this removing at the same time dirt, bobble and grime giving you a nice clean fresh looking Alcantara seat.

Some suggest using IPA / alcohol cleaner but we would not use this as it could bleach the colour and remove the dye from the material.

A lot of manufacturers use Alcantara like, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Toyota just to name a few.

It can be found on steering wheels as well to give you a softer more luxury feel to the wheel, but sweat and compounded dirt can soon make the steering wheel look terrible as it flattens out the fibres and grease and grime build up.

Steam cleaning the material is bar far the best method we have found producing outstanding results every time when steam cleaning use a soft suede brush to fluff up the fibres making it look as good as new again.

To help prevent the material from getting ingrained dirt and grime build up you can apply a fabric protector to give the material a waterproof finish stopping dirt and grime attacking the surface.