There are so many alternatives of baseball oil and conditioner that does exist. Vaseline, saddle soaps are some examples of them. Some baseball player thinks that they can use coconut oil as the alternative of baseball conditioners. Can you use Coconut Oil On A Baseball Glove?
Even some of them use it for reshaping and reviving a baseball glove. But is this the right thing to do? Is there any side effect of using coconut oil on baseball glove? Overall is it ok to use coconut oil on leather gloves? Let’s dive deep into those questions’ answers of coconut oil baseball glove.
Can you use Coconut Oil On a Baseball Glove?
No, we recommend you not to use coconut oil on baseball gloves. We never applied coconut oils to our glove. Because we don’t want to dump our favourite baseball mates in the garbage.
The question is how we are sure that coconut oil will damage baseball glove. We have a professional player’s forum for taking surveys and reviews from baseball community. We found two reviewers who used it. One of them (jason2017) reviewed that he tried the oils on a baseball glove.
Not just it, he also applied it on his car seat. After 24 hours, he found that the result was horrible. The glove’s upper layer got to tear up, and laces got loosen and moved out of position.
Coconut Oil Isn’t An Alternative for Glove Oils
We have a general and straightforward question for you. What is coconut oil used for? The answer is quite simple as the question. Obviously for your hair and in some cases for skin too. Then how it could be right using on baseball glove which is made of leather?
Another point is about ingredients. Baseball glove oil contains mink oil, neatsfoot or beeswax. Some of them also come with pine tar. Even if you find on the market you should find some oils that are mixtures of all of this. But how are coconut oils made? Coconut oil is some edible oil extracted from mature coconuts. It doesn’t add any good value to leather but harm.
1. Your Glove Will Not Dry Even After 48 Hours
At first of this article, we mentioned that we took a review from 2 people who used coconut oil on a baseball glove. (jason2017) is one of them, and the other is (harrymugre2299). His review is quite a bit detailed. First, after using coconut oil, he left his glove under a fan for 24 hours.
He wakes up the next day and found his glove didn’t dry and soaking with oils as he left the day before. Then he tried to do another technique of drying baseball glove which we don’t recommend doing. He used the microwave oven and air heater for that. Do you know what happened?
His glove ended up losing all its moisture and tearing its laces. A total disappointment! So the first problem you will face that is your glove will not dry.
2. Coconut Oil Will Make Your Glove Slippery
Coconut oil helps your dry hair by moisturizing its dead cells. Baseball glove oil and conditioners are specially made for absorbing on the glove as fast as possible. But coco oil is different here. The fatty acid (Ingredients of coconut oil) doesn’t let the oil absorb fast.
So if you use it on a glove, your glove will give a slippery performance for the rest of its lifespan. (Not even going to last for a month and I’m talking about the lifespan! lol) As a result, your catch will drop and your game will be affected by your performance.
3. Coconut Oil Will Change Your Glove’s Color
Remember (harrymugre2299)? The second guy who told that coconut oil damaged his glove’s moisture. Not just that, he also told that the color of his gloves got change on the first day (after 24 hours).
A bottle of coconut oil contains 49% lauric acid, 20% myristic acid, 8% palmitic acid, 7% caprylic acid, 5% capric acid and 3% stearic acid. That high amount of acid chemicals isn’t friendly for any leathers.
Glove colors can be over darken by using it. That’s why we totally don’t recommend using coco oil in a baseball glove.
It Will Ruins Your Game Performance
slippery changes its color and doesn’t dry out in a week. Sometimes you can’t afford a new glove instantly to play an important tournament. So if you need to play urgent with that slippery glove then it’s sure that it will impact your catching performance.
The baseball will slip from your glove’s pocket and you will drop the ball which you’ve already been caught. This can create a hostile and disappointed atmosphere on the field. So it’s better not to use coconut oils in gloves at any condition if you love your leather game buddy.
Coconut Oil Isn’t Friendly For Wood Furniture
This isn’t a related topic in this article. But I just want to know, did your curious mind ever asked from you how coconut oil works with wood things? The answer is coco oil isn’t friendly with wood at all.
Like leather, it makes wood furniture darker too. Homemade rare carpenters like me used it on wood board to make it darker. (I’ve used it on my chair). Without this, it doesn’t have any significant harmful effects on use.
Wrap Up
Prevention is better than cure. It’s rarely possible to revive your glove which you’ve damaged with coconut oil. So why do you need to use that when you surely know that your glove isn’t going to revive?
Everyone loves the baseball gloves that he owns. And most of the time if you are an adult league player than it can be the expensive one. Coconut oil is made for hair and it’s better to use on it. But trying to use it on leather or wood can be harmful.
