Two Chanel bags. And the beginning of GLOWBAG.

If you asked me when GLOWBAG began, I could say: with the first formula, the first bottle or the moment the name was decided. But really, it started much earlier.

In 2012, I bought my first Chanel Classic Flap in black lambskin. A year later, a second Chanel joined it: a black WOC, also in lambskin. These two bags were very special to me, and I had thought long and hard before buying them.

After carrying them just a few times, the inevitable happened: I noticed the first light marks. Make-up residue from my fingers – inside and out, especially around the clasp.

So I bought a few leather care products. The packaging always seemed to say the same thing: “Suitable for all leather. For shoes, furniture, car seats and handbags.” It sounded logical to me. Leather is leather, after all.

But instead of getting better, my bag gradually looked worse. The black lambskin turned greyish and dull, some products left a sticky residue, and even the dark stitching eventually started to look whitish. I simply couldn’t understand why.

So I did what you probably do when you think you just haven’t found the right product yet: I bought another one. And then another. The products became more and more expensive, but my hope was always the same: maybe this one will finally work.

Eventually, the leather looked so bad that, out of sheer desperation, I even applied black shoe polish. I thought I could at least bring the colour back. That was the end of it. Of course, the shoe polish rubbed off, and I could no longer carry the bag. So I put it in its dust bag and stored it away in my wardrobe. It stayed there for a few years.

I continued to carry the WOC. I had used it less often – and fortunately, I had also “treated” it far less.

But I didn’t give up. I kept looking for products and for a solution. Surely there had to be something that could clean and care for a high-quality leather bag without making me afraid of doing something wrong every time I used it.

Eventually, I realised: I had absolutely no idea what I had actually been putting my bag through.

I wanted to understand why.

So I stopped simply buying the next product and started researching. Leather types, surfaces, cleaning and care. Why soft lambskin behaves completely differently from the leather used for shoes or furniture – and why it also has very different requirements.

The leather of a fine quilted handbag should be soft and supple. Shoes and furniture, depending on their purpose, need to meet completely different demands. So why should a single product labelled “for leather” automatically be suitable for everything made of leather?

The more I learned, the more I found myself asking one question: Why do we care for high-quality handbags in the same way as shoes when they have completely different requirements?

After all, I use different skincare on my face than I do on my body. Why? Because the skin on my face is thinner and exposed to different environmental influences. And then I had this one thought that suddenly brought everything together for me:

Leather is skin, too.

Not in the biological sense of our own skin, of course – but for me, that was the change in perspective. Why shouldn’t I think about cleaning, care and different needs for fine handbag leather in the same way I think about skincare?

What if handbag care were more like skincare?

That idea became the inspiration behind GLOWBAG.

I wanted to think about handbag care differently. Not clean more aggressively, but care for each material appropriately. Not apply as much product as possible, but use it consciously. And above all, understand what you are dealing with first.

I wanted products I wouldn’t be afraid to apply to a bag I had invested a lot of money in myself. So I started working on exactly that. Not overnight, and certainly not on the first attempt. There were formulas, tests, changes – and one question I kept coming back to: Would I use this on my own Chanel? If the answer wasn’t an unequivocal yes, it wasn’t good enough yet.

A personal problem became GLOWBAG.

Today, GLOWBAG stands for water-based cleaning and care developed with high-quality handbags in mind. For different materials and different needs. Inspired by skincare rather than traditional shoe care.

But to me, GLOWBAG is about more than what’s inside the bottles. It’s the belief that a bag you chose with care deserves to be cared for with the same thoughtfulness. That not all leather is the same. And that good handbag care doesn’t have to be complicated when you know what you’re doing.

My two Chanel bags look better today than they did after many of my earlier attempts at caring for them. That’s proof enough for me. They’re a pretty good reminder of why I started GLOWBAG – and why, with every new idea, I think about the bag first and the product second.

GLOWBAG – in a nutshell

GLOWBAG is skincare-inspired cleaning and care for high-quality handbags. GLOW CLEANER removes surface dirt from suitable leather and canvas surfaces. GLOW CONDITIONER moisturises suitable genuine leather, helps keep it supple and supports protection against environmental influences such as sun, rain and dust.

A care routine for bags that are more than just an accessory.

Janine Fichna, Founder of GLOWBAG