If you have ever got biro on your leather sofa or leather jacket then you have probably started to panic. Most leather cleaners and other cleaning products just will not touch it and can even damage the lather around it, but I recently found out one way to remove pen marks off a sofa with little effort.

Hairspray – yes you heard me, hairspray contains certain ingredients that break down the pen and allow it to be easily removed with a clean cloth. When I first applied the hairspray, after reading about it on a cleaning forum and getting fed up of trying everything else, I was a little worried to see that the leather seemed to turn slightly lighter. I sprayed the spray on then left for about 5 seconds before removing. I repeated this process a few times and then wiped over the sofa with water and then leather cleaner to remove any of the spray. Soon afterwards the sofa returned to it’s usually colour with the pen mark nowhere to be seen. Whenever trying anything new on material such as leather, always do a patch test first in an area that will not be seen.