A long time ago me and the Mrs. spent a particularly cold winter in China. No matter how I dressed, the wind cut through my clothing. Clearly I needed local winter wear to protect me from the cold --- like the old proverb "when in China do as the Chinese".
So, with the help of some friends, I got myself a Mao Winter Jacket lined with Camel hair. I felt warm and itchy for the rest of my stay.
When we got back to the U.S. I had to hide the jacket for fear of being branded a communist. Once situated, I hid the jacket in a closet and forgot about it. Unfortunately, the smell of camels started to get on my wife's nerves. So I took it out and wrapped it in a heavy storage bag and threw it back in the closet. No matter what I did, no matter what I wrapped it in, no matter how many moth balls I added, the smell escaped and spread throughout our house.
I should mention that I was in a chemical accident at school, so my sense of smell is wanting. My wife, on the other hand can smell beer on my breath from a mile away.
With nothing to loose, I tried to concoct a preservative that would seal the cloth and eliminate the smell. Silicon shoe spray would have done the trick, but since it used all kinds of nasty synthetic materials it was out of the question. What I needed was a natural preservative, something strong enough to clog an artery would do the trick.
In a "Eureka" moment Schmaltz came to mind. My mom always had some handy, so on my next visit I dug some out and quietly brought it home. one day, when the wife was away, I heated up the schmaltz and applied it by brush to the jacket; first to the cotton cloth on the outside of the jacket, then, when it dried, I applied a thin layer to the inside of the jacket.
Slowly but surely the layers built up to the point that the jacket became stiff and shiny. The camel hair lined Mao jacket actually looked much better with schmaltz than without. Sniff-sniff, the camel smell was gone, replaced by the delightful smell of fresh chicken soup. No-one got sick after that for a long time (my guess is that the smell of chicken soup is an all-purpose cureative, rather than the chicken soup itself, but who knows).
To make a long story short, the schmaltz did the trick. Unfortunately, mold grows on schmaltz when applied to camel hair lined jackets. Terrible, nightmarish green ugly mold. The kind you never want to see. The jacket had to be destroyed.
For this reason, and only this reason, I do not recommend applying Schmaltz to any valuable bicycle other than a Masi.
Amir Avitzur in rainy Ramat-Gan, Israel (eating shake cha-han)