Desiccant for Leather and Footwear Exports

Leather and footwear are hygroscopic: they take up water vapour during production, packing and storage, and release it again inside a sealed carton or container. On a voyage into a hot, humid destination that released moisture condenses and drives mildew, musty odour and staining that cannot be washed out. The defence is a desiccant inside each pack, plus a container desiccant for the whole load when the shipment itself is the risk.

What Goes Wrong

• Mildew and mould staining — dark spots and a musty smell on leather and linings that survive cleaning and ruin resale.
• Odour — trapped damp air leaves shoes and bags smelling of storage long after arrival.
• Metal corrosion — zips, eyelets, buckles and shanks rust, staining the material around them.
• Carton and packaging damage — softened, mould-affected cartons lead to rejected consignments at inspection.

Packing while leather is still warm from finishing, or damp from processing, makes every one of these worse, because free moisture carried in with the goods is the hardest thing for any desiccant to control. Let goods equilibrate in a dry area before closing the pack.

Inside Each Pack

• Industrial desiccant sachets — the general-purpose choice for footwear, leather goods and apparel. They are made from narrow pore silica gel, Type B silica gel, colour-indicating silica gel, active mineral balls, montmorillonite and molecular sieve, and are supplied from 0.5 g to 1000 g in a range of sachet materials, so the grade and weight can be matched to the item.
• Blue indicating silica gel — listed by us for leather, clothing and appliance packaging; it turns from blue to pink as it saturates, so a sachet that has already spent itself is visible without opening anything else.
• Fiber drying sheets — flat, sheet-type desiccants in plant fibre with a PET coating, suited to apparel and footwear packs and even to clothing tags, and useful where a loose sachet is awkward.
• Scented silica gel — absorbs odour while releasing fragrance and regulating humidity, listed for footwear, headwear and apparel packaging.

The Container Layer

When you are shipping cartons by the container, protect the container as well as the packs. Moisture released by the leather, the cartons and the pallets has nowhere to go inside a sealed box, and on a humid route it condenses on the roof and doors. A container desiccant hung along the walls keeps that air dry for the whole voyage. Our guide to preventing mildew on garments and textiles sets out the same approach for apparel, and applies directly to leather and footwear.

Packing Points That Decide the Outcome

• Do not pack warm or damp goods; let them reach room temperature and equilibrium first.
• Place the sachet low in the carton, where moisture collects, and inside the item's own polybag where one is used.
• Use dry, kiln-dried pallets and dry cartons only.
• Leave the goods room to breathe within the carton rather than compressing them against the walls.
• Consider a moisture-barrier liner inside the carton for high-value leather.

What to Put on the Enquiry

Tell us the item type (footwear, bags, garments or mixed), how it is packed and how many cartons, the container size if you ship by container, the destination and the voyage length. That is enough for us to recommend the sachet weight per pack and the container desiccant quantity. All products are quoted on request.