How to patina your phone case
- This is my iPhone X and Ilove it, I think it's great but I also think it kinda needs a case and, for me, the best case, even though it's a little bit overpriced, is the official AppleiPhone X leather case. I think it's a really nice balance of protection and usability,it feels pretty good, but I think it also lookskinda ugly out of the box. Look how, I don't know, yellow it is. Now, if you use this for a few months, you eventually get something like this, which I think is lovely. It's got this nice patina and it just feels really personal to me but I don't wanna wait a few months, so I'm gonna show you,later on in this video, how I went from this tothis with sandpaper and oil and a whole bunch of crazy work. But here's a question. Why do I care this much about cases? Turns out the best person toanswer that question isn't me, it's The Verge's residentcase expert, Ashley Carman, so let's go talk to her. (light electronic music) - Man, I think this was last summer, I reviewed this phone case,the pom pom phone case, and I was so excited when I opened it, I was like this is the cutest thing I've ever seen in my whole life, and then within three weeks it was literally like a torture device because these little hairskept showing up everywhere like in my food, seriously like in my food like the most random bowl, like a bowl that wasn'teven near my phone. - Right.- I would just like get food and it would be in there, the hairs. It would be on my clothes. - These little filaments that come off and they like float aroundyour whole, oh my God. - Yeah, it would be in mydreams, yeah, you have one now. (Dieter laughs)They stick everywhere.
I have like shunned this but I brought it outjust for this occasion. - When I buy a phone case, the first thing I'mthinking about is like, 'Okay, I'm gonna protect my phone' 'so that when I drop it, it won't smash.' None of these cases arethat basic and functional, so like, what are youlooking for with a case? - Well, yeah, I'm not reallylooking for protection which is probably a mistake. I more am just trying tofind the weirdest case. - Well, I mean, the reason Iwanted to talk to you is like, so this is the after of my iPhone X case. - Oh, wow. - And so the Apple caseon it's own is really like yellow and tan.- Yeah. - And I wanted it tolook cool and weathered so I just started thinking about why I am caring this muchabout the way a case looks when up to now I just thoughtabout it like protection. - If everyone has the same looking phone, every phone looks the same.- Right. - How are you gonna differentiate it? How are you gonna expressyour own personal style? - Right, applying the termfashion to cases seems, I don't know, frivolous, but it actually like,it makes perfect sense. You this of fashion as clothes,like clothes need to have, like primary function, theyneed to keep you from dying in the cold weatherwhatever, (Ashley laughs) like they're functional. But like, it's how youpresent yourself to the world, but I also think it's like how you present yourself to yourself, you feel different dependingon what you're wearing. - Yeah. - And there's no reasonthat shouldn't also apply to phone, right.- I totally agree, I think there's people out there who buys, you know, unique Android phones or maybe not just the mainstream ones because they're like I wannabe able to show that I am into OnePlus or something like that. - Right, yeah. - With iPhones...
They're all the same.- Yeah. - You are giving away yourfashion sense to Jony Ive and he's got great fashion sense, I guess he wears like the t-shirts and the weird pants whatever. (laughs) - Yeah, no but I mean like- - But like I'm not JonyI've, I'm super not. - It's good design but I don't know- - Design isn't fashion. - I wanna be individualand it's hard though. - Right. - I mean, there's a lot of cool cases but eventually startrunning into the same things like this glitter falling case,you see a ton of these now. - Yeah.- And it's like the liquid, so it's hard to findthese more unique styles. - Okay, so, what did we learn? Well, first of all welearned Ashley is amazing. Thank you, Ashley. Now I feel way better about this project that I'm about to embark on. Tools: cardboard, of course Ihave the unsullied Apple case, I went to Walgreens and Igot some sandpaper blocks and also coconut oil, 100 percent extra virgin with shea butter and, of course, paper towel. So, if you know anythingabout leather working, what I'm about to do to thiscase is going to horrify you, but you know what, I don't care. It's my case, I wanna makeit feel more like my case and so to make it better, I'm gonna destroy it a little bit first. Let me show you how. So there are four basic stepsto get from this to this. The first step is that this case has a protective coating onit, you need to get that off. I'm gonna sand it off but you can also uselike nail polish remover. The second step is you needsomething to darken the leather once you've got that coating off. I'm gonna use coconut oil butsome people use shoe polish. I mean, you could spit onthe thing if you want to.
The third step is leave it out, preferably outside in the sun,because it's gonna smell bad and also the sun helps speedup the darkening process. And then the final step,and this is kinda important, is once it's back on your phone, you just kinda have towork it at a little bit, to smooth it out and just sort of get all the little weird bits that happen in the whole process smoothedout and looking better. Okay, so (exhales), here we go. I'm starting with a pretty heavy grit, but then I'm gonna go to a lighter grit but you could just use whatever you got sitting around the house and immediately you're gonna see this is, this is a really scary thing I'm doing. You know, just becareful, don't oversand it and end up just completelyruining the case, but I'm just kind ofhitting all the corners, hitting all the edges. Another thing to be aware of is you don't have to hit theedges quite as much as you do like the back and the Apple logo simply because that's wherethe natural oils from your hand are gonna be hitting thephone the most anyway, and so they're gonnaget darker on their own. This case is gonna besitting around my house, it's gonna be sittingaround me all the time, and there's a lot of stuffthat sits around my house, sits around me all thetime that I want to be nice and I want to feel like it's mine so Ashley and I talked a lotabout cases in terms of fashion but it's also a thing that's just around.
I have a favorite chair,I have favorite blanket, and I've got, I don't know, nice plates and looking at this case every day, I can look at and I'llbe able to feel better about this thing that I helped make. But yeah, I think thisthing is ready for oil. Alright, so, as I'm spraying this thing it's pretty intense, it smellsreally bad, sorry about that, and then I do need towork it in a little bit just to make sure it hits all the different parts of the phone. So, I was inspired todo this by this thread over on the Mac Rumorsforums called patina proud, which is just a whole bunchof people who have this case that were showing offhow they managed to get a really nice patina on their case and they talked abouttheir different methods for getting there. And you end up with somethingthat looks like this, and I think this looks awesome. It looks distressed and cool and mine and that's the point,it looks like it's mine.
Whether you do what Ashley does and you buy a bunch of weirdcases that are unique to her or you do what I do and youliterally destroy a phone case, you want it to feel like it's yours. Technology can be alienatingand it can feel generic, everybody has the same thing, and so customizing your case can make technology bewhat it's supposed to be. It's supposed to belong to you. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching my weird science experiment. If you wanna see actual real science, you should check out ourbrand new YouTube channel, it's Verge Science. You absolutely wanna clickthe link somewhere here. It's awesome.
I have like shunned this but I brought it outjust for this occasion. - When I buy a phone case, the first thing I'mthinking about is like, 'Okay, I'm gonna protect my phone' 'so that when I drop it, it won't smash.' None of these cases arethat basic and functional, so like, what are youlooking for with a case? - Well, yeah, I'm not reallylooking for protection which is probably a mistake. I more am just trying tofind the weirdest case. - Well, I mean, the reason Iwanted to talk to you is like, so this is the after of my iPhone X case. - Oh, wow. - And so the Apple caseon it's own is really like yellow and tan.- Yeah. - And I wanted it tolook cool and weathered so I just started thinking about why I am caring this muchabout the way a case looks when up to now I just thoughtabout it like protection. - If everyone has the same looking phone, every phone looks the same.- Right. - How are you gonna differentiate it? How are you gonna expressyour own personal style? - Right, applying the termfashion to cases seems, I don't know, frivolous, but it actually like,it makes perfect sense. You this of fashion as clothes,like clothes need to have, like primary function, theyneed to keep you from dying in the cold weatherwhatever, (Ashley laughs) like they're functional. But like, it's how youpresent yourself to the world, but I also think it's like how you present yourself to yourself, you feel different dependingon what you're wearing. - Yeah. - And there's no reasonthat shouldn't also apply to phone, right.- I totally agree, I think there's people out there who buys, you know, unique Android phones or maybe not just the mainstream ones because they're like I wannabe able to show that I am into OnePlus or something like that. - Right, yeah. - With iPhones...
They're all the same.- Yeah. - You are giving away yourfashion sense to Jony Ive and he's got great fashion sense, I guess he wears like the t-shirts and the weird pants whatever. (laughs) - Yeah, no but I mean like- - But like I'm not JonyI've, I'm super not. - It's good design but I don't know- - Design isn't fashion. - I wanna be individualand it's hard though. - Right. - I mean, there's a lot of cool cases but eventually startrunning into the same things like this glitter falling case,you see a ton of these now. - Yeah.- And it's like the liquid, so it's hard to findthese more unique styles. - Okay, so, what did we learn? Well, first of all welearned Ashley is amazing. Thank you, Ashley. Now I feel way better about this project that I'm about to embark on. Tools: cardboard, of course Ihave the unsullied Apple case, I went to Walgreens and Igot some sandpaper blocks and also coconut oil, 100 percent extra virgin with shea butter and, of course, paper towel. So, if you know anythingabout leather working, what I'm about to do to thiscase is going to horrify you, but you know what, I don't care. It's my case, I wanna makeit feel more like my case and so to make it better, I'm gonna destroy it a little bit first. Let me show you how. So there are four basic stepsto get from this to this. The first step is that this case has a protective coating onit, you need to get that off. I'm gonna sand it off but you can also uselike nail polish remover. The second step is you needsomething to darken the leather once you've got that coating off. I'm gonna use coconut oil butsome people use shoe polish. I mean, you could spit onthe thing if you want to.
The third step is leave it out, preferably outside in the sun,because it's gonna smell bad and also the sun helps speedup the darkening process. And then the final step,and this is kinda important, is once it's back on your phone, you just kinda have towork it at a little bit, to smooth it out and just sort of get all the little weird bits that happen in the whole process smoothedout and looking better. Okay, so (exhales), here we go. I'm starting with a pretty heavy grit, but then I'm gonna go to a lighter grit but you could just use whatever you got sitting around the house and immediately you're gonna see this is, this is a really scary thing I'm doing. You know, just becareful, don't oversand it and end up just completelyruining the case, but I'm just kind ofhitting all the corners, hitting all the edges. Another thing to be aware of is you don't have to hit theedges quite as much as you do like the back and the Apple logo simply because that's wherethe natural oils from your hand are gonna be hitting thephone the most anyway, and so they're gonnaget darker on their own. This case is gonna besitting around my house, it's gonna be sittingaround me all the time, and there's a lot of stuffthat sits around my house, sits around me all thetime that I want to be nice and I want to feel like it's mine so Ashley and I talked a lotabout cases in terms of fashion but it's also a thing that's just around.
I have a favorite chair,I have favorite blanket, and I've got, I don't know, nice plates and looking at this case every day, I can look at and I'llbe able to feel better about this thing that I helped make. But yeah, I think thisthing is ready for oil. Alright, so, as I'm spraying this thing it's pretty intense, it smellsreally bad, sorry about that, and then I do need towork it in a little bit just to make sure it hits all the different parts of the phone. So, I was inspired todo this by this thread over on the Mac Rumorsforums called patina proud, which is just a whole bunchof people who have this case that were showing offhow they managed to get a really nice patina on their case and they talked abouttheir different methods for getting there. And you end up with somethingthat looks like this, and I think this looks awesome. It looks distressed and cool and mine and that's the point,it looks like it's mine.
Whether you do what Ashley does and you buy a bunch of weirdcases that are unique to her or you do what I do and youliterally destroy a phone case, you want it to feel like it's yours. Technology can be alienatingand it can feel generic, everybody has the same thing, and so customizing your case can make technology bewhat it's supposed to be. It's supposed to belong to you. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching my weird science experiment. If you wanna see actual real science, you should check out ourbrand new YouTube channel, it's Verge Science. You absolutely wanna clickthe link somewhere here. It's awesome.
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