We use pure Jojoba oil, available at not too bad a price from aromatherapy suppliers. We started using it several years ago when nobody else was talking about it, and now there are lots of people conditioning their rope with Jojoba, We don’t know if we started the trend by writing about it on some of the rope groups on the net, but it’s a nice thought...

The main thing is to be sure that you get the pure oil with no additives. It’s colourless, almost smell-free, and it’s also readily absorbed by skin and makes a great treatment for dry cracked skin! But most important is that Jojoba oil does not break down and go rancid. Traditional oils for natural fibre rope are animal-based, including the Japanese “bayu” (horse) oil. It may be traditional, but it does go rancid and very nasty. I know, I’ve had bottles of it go off...

Some people recommend mink oil. It may be wonderful for all I know, here in the UK I’ve never been able to find a source of pure additive-free mink oil short of setting up a mink farm and boiling them down for their oil myself. But it’s an animal oil, and most animal oils go rancid in time.

I’m more than happy with pure jojoba. It’s what we use to condition Convolvulus rope, and it’s what we recommend you to use if your Convolvulus rope starts to feel a bit dry and scratchy.

All you have to do is put a tiny dab of oil on the palm of one hand and pull the rope through under a gentle squeeze. Then pull it back in the other direction. Repeat a time or two and the job is done. We also pull it through a folded tea towel with a few drops of oil on it, but that’s because we tend to do a lot of rope at a time. It’s not necessary for re-oiling. The main thing is to avoid overdoing it and saturating the rope with oil. As the roughest of guides, a 250ml bottle of Jojoba oil will last most people several years, even with regular re-oiling of a substantial rope collection.