Hestra Leather Balm

Hestra's own leather conditioner, made for the goatskin and cowhide gloves it also makes. Leather in a ski glove is a working material: it gets wet, it dries out, and each cycle takes a little suppleness with it. The balm puts back what the drying takes out.

What is in it

Hestra lists the contents plainly: beeswax, lanolin, carnauba wax and neatsfoot oil. Waxes and oils, nothing more. Hestra's stated purpose for it is to "preserve the suppleness and water resistance of the leather" — it feeds the hide so the fibres stay pliable, and it tops up the surface treatment that sheds water before the leather can soak it up.

What it does not do

It conditions leather. It does not add a membrane. On a glove with no waterproof insert — which is most of the Hestra leather line, including the Army Leather Patrol and the Army Leather Heli Ski — the water resistance lives in the treated hide itself, and a treatment depletes with use. That is exactly what the balm is for: it restores a treatment, it does not install a barrier. Sustained wet weather calls for a membrane glove — CZone or GORE-TEX — not a conditioned one.

What it is for

Hestra says it is suitable for goatskin and cowhide sports gloves. That covers the impregnated cowhide and Army goat leather used across the Hestra ski range. One size, sold as a tin.

Who should skip it

If your gloves are synthetic — a shell of polyester or polyamide with no leather palm — there is nothing here for the balm to feed. It is a leather product, and only a leather product. Buy it with a leather glove, not instead of one.