GLOWBAG started long before the first formula. To be precise, it all began with two Chanel bags I couldn’t find the right care for.
In 2012, I bought my first Chanel Classic Flap in black lambskin. A year later, a black WOC joined it, also in lambskin. I had thought long and hard about both purchases, so I handled the bags carefully.
Even so, after a while I noticed the first light marks. Especially around the clasp, there was make-up residue from my fingers, inside and out.
I bought various leather care products. The packaging said they were suitable for shoes, furniture, car seats and handbags. Back then, that made sense to me. Leather is leather, after all.
With every attempt at care, though, the bag looked a little worse. The black lambskin turned greyish and dull. Some products left a sticky residue, and even the dark quilting stitches eventually looked whitish.
For a long time, I thought I just hadn’t found the right product yet. So I bought the next one, and then another. They kept getting more expensive, and my hope stayed the same: maybe this one will finally work.
At some point, out of desperation, I reached for black shoe polish. I at least wanted to bring the colour back. The bag was darker afterwards, but it rubbed off on my clothes. I couldn’t carry it like that anymore. I put it in its dust bag and into the wardrobe, where it stayed for several years.
I kept using the WOC. I had carried it less often and, luckily, treated it far less too.
Later, I asked in a boutique how to care for delicate lambskin. I didn’t get a specific product recommendation. Instead, someone mentioned baby oil. Online, I also found all kinds of home remedies and DIY tips. After everything I had been through, though, I didn’t want to experiment on my bag any further.
I finally wanted to understand what this leather needs
So I stopped buying new products at random and started researching. I read up on leather types, surfaces, cleaning and care. Gradually, I understood why fine lambskin behaves differently from the leather of a shoe, a sofa or a car seat.
A soft, quilted handbag should stay supple and feel pleasant to the touch. Shoes and furniture have to withstand completely different stresses in everyday life. So a product labelled “for leather” can’t automatically be the right choice for every leather surface.
At the same time, I was very into skincare. There, it was completely normal to choose products by skin type, condition and use. After all, I used different care for my face than for my body.
And then I had a thought that brought a lot together:
Leather is skin, too.
Of course, processed leather isn’t the same as living human skin. Still, the comparison helped me look at my bags differently. If we pay such close attention to different needs in skincare, why should we treat high-quality leather bags with the same products as shoes or furniture?
The idea behind GLOWBAG
I imagined bag care modelled on a skincare routine: understand the material first, then clean and care for it accordingly.
GLOWBAG grew out of that thought, step by step. Then came formulas, tests and many changes. With every attempt, I asked myself the same question: Would I put this product on my own Chanel?
If I couldn’t answer yes straight away, it wasn’t finished yet.
In 2023, I founded GLOWBAG in Munich. My goal was an easy-to-understand care routine for high-quality handbags and their different materials. It should be simple to use, without pretending that every product suits every surface.
That’s what I had been missing back then: bag care that puts the material first.
My two Chanel bags look better today than after many of my earlier attempts at caring for them. And every time, they remind me why I started GLOWBAG.
When I work on a new idea, I think about the bag first. The product comes second.
