- This is my iPhone X and I love 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 Apple iPhone X leather case.
I think it's a really nice balance
of protection and usability, it feels pretty good,
but I think it also looks kinda 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 to this 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 to answer that question isn't me,
it's The Verge's resident case 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 hairs kept showing up everywhere like
in my food, seriously like in my food
like the most random bowl,
like a bowl that wasn't even 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 around your whole, oh my God.
- Yeah, it would be in my dreams, yeah, you have one now.
(Dieter laughs) They stick everywhere.
I have like shunned this
but I brought it out just for this occasion.
- When I buy a phone case,
the first thing I'm thinking about is like,
'Okay, I'm gonna protect my phone'
'so that when I drop it, it won't smash.'
None of these cases are that basic and functional,
so like, what are you looking for with a case?
- Well, yeah, I'm not really looking for protection
which is probably a mistake.
I more am just trying to find the weirdest case.
- Well, I mean, the reason I wanted to talk to you is like,
so this is the after of my iPhone X case.
- Oh, wow.
- And so the Apple case on it's own is really like
yellow and tan. - Yeah.
- And I wanted it to look cool and weathered
so I just started thinking about
why I am caring this much about the way a case looks
when up to now I just thought about 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 express your own personal style?
- Right, applying the term fashion 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, they need to keep you from dying
in the cold weather whatever, (Ashley laughs)
like they're functional.
But like, it's how you present yourself to the world,
but I also think it's like
how you present yourself to yourself,
you feel different depending on what you're wearing.
- Yeah.
- And there's no reason that 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 wanna be 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 your fashion 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 Jony I've, I'm super not.
- It's good design but I don't know-
- Design isn't fashion.
- I wanna be individual and it's hard though.
- Right.
- I mean, there's a lot of cool cases
but eventually start running 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 find these more unique styles.
- Okay, so, what did we learn?
Well, first of all we learned 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 I have the unsullied Apple case,
I went to Walgreens and I got some sandpaper blocks
and also coconut oil,
100 percent extra virgin with shea butter
and, of course, paper towel.
So, if you know anything about leather working,
what I'm about to do to this case is going to horrify you,
but you know what, I don't care.
It's my case, I wanna make it 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 steps to get from this to this.
The first step is that this case
has a protective coating on it, you need to get that off.
I'm gonna sand it off
but you can also use like nail polish remover.
The second step is you need something to darken the leather
once you've got that coating off.
I'm gonna use coconut oil but some people use shoe polish.
I mean, you could spit on the 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 speed up 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 to work 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 smoothed out 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 be careful, don't oversand it
and end up just completely ruining the case,
but I'm just kind of hitting all the corners,
hitting all the edges.
Another thing to be aware of is
you don't have to hit the edges quite as much as you do
like the back and the Apple logo
simply because that's where the natural oils from your hand
are gonna be hitting the phone the most anyway,
and so they're gonna get darker on their own.
This case is gonna be sitting around my house,
it's gonna be sitting around me all the time,
and there's a lot of stuff that sits around my house,
sits around me all the time that I want to be nice
and I want to feel like it's mine
so Ashley and I talked a lot about 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'll be able to feel better
about this thing that I helped make.
But yeah, I think this thing is ready for oil.
Alright, so, as I'm spraying this thing
it's pretty intense, it smells really bad, sorry about that,
and then I do need to work it in a little bit
just to make sure it hits
all the different parts of the phone.
So, I was inspired to do this by this thread
over on the Mac Rumors forums called patina proud,
which is just a whole bunch of people who have this case
that were showing off how they managed to get
a really nice patina on their case
and they talked about their different methods
for getting there.
And you end up with something that 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 weird cases that are unique to her
or you do what I do and you literally destroy a phone case,
you want it to feel like it's yours.
Technology can be alienating and it can feel generic,
everybody has the same thing,
and so customizing your case
can make technology be what 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 our brand new YouTube channel,
it's Verge Science.
You absolutely wanna click the link somewhere here.
It's awesome.