Sense Your Leather. .One of the Greatest Choices Ever.
Leather is such a fascinating material. This is the material from which your dreamy shoes are made of. Leather, or raw animal hides that have been preserved, boasts a wide range of positive qualities. Every pore and scratch tells a story of the animals life.
Since the dawn of civilization, the mankind has been using leather for a variety of purposes but one of the most common ones is Shoemaking. Different animals produce leathers with different qualities. This deduce that there are many types of shoe making leathers and it can get rather confusing and imprecise for mostly all of us.
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Apart from the construction of a shoe, the other most important aspect is the choice and quality of leather. Leather is essentially a hide sourced from different animals and has various characteristics. Leather is breathable, elastic, tear proof, abrasion-resistant, heat insulating, and supple. It lends shoes protection with its sturdiness, has a temperature-regulating effect, and lends shoes a sophisticated appearance as well. Each leather undergoes many steps to produce the end result. Some of them are perfect for rougher use and scuff resistant while others are more delicate and used for more formal occasions. In order to achieve these positive qualities, an extensive selection is done in the very early stages, out of the raw animal hides. Moreover, the best finished leather is selected to make the finest quality shoes in the world. The higher the quality of the shoe, the higher the proportion of leather used in its construction.
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Leather Kinds :
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It is extremely essential to understand the various leather kinds produced today and their processes in order to select the best leather for any applications especially Shoe Making. We encourage our Customers to become familiar with these terms before making any buying decisions keeping in mind that there are many products made out of a substitute of leather which looks the same but it is not.
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As with most things in life leather has “variants”. The area that the leather comes from has a big impact on the quality. Generally, the best leather comes from parts of the animal that are not exposed to damage so often. Typically, this includes the Back while the worst parts come from the head and legs or belly or the Neck.
Here are the variants of leather:
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Full Grain Leather :
Full Grain Leather is the best quality leather from the top of the chain. It refers to the outside part of the animal’s hide just below the hair. This is the upper layer of a hide which is split into layers by a splitting machine to various thickness. Thereafter the hides can be colored & given various protective finishes. The term “Full” means that it has not been buffed. Buffing is a process that is used to remove imperfections or marks on the skin.
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Only few parts of an animal hide are suitable for full grain leather which makes it more expensive and harder for leatherworkers like us to process. Nonetheless, full grain leather is a strongest, most durable and valuable material of the hide that will last for years with proper care.
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Top Grain Leather :
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Top Grain Leather is like full grain leather but it undergoes light buffing to shave off a few millimeters from the top, removing any imperfections or marks. This means that while it retains the general characteristics of full grain, it is thinner, less durable, less breathable and more uniform with a smooth finish. Hence, it is not optimal for Shoes and bags.
Corrected Grain Leather :
The leather goes through buffing and the original pores are shaved off. Then there is a layer of artificial grain apllied on it, which comes in multiple patterns. This gives it a false natural look through spraying with stain and dyes. Because of this, corrected grain leather will have a thicker finish than non-corrected grain, and may also be a little shinier.
Suede Leather :
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As you remove the hair and trim down the grain you get to the split-part of the hide, or simply the fleshy part. This fleshy part is sanded and buffed to create a soft thin texture. It is more in fashion these days.
Unfortunately, Suede is a sponge for water and stains making it quite a fragile leather.
Chamois Leather :
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Chamois (or Shammy Leather) is possibly the most confusing of the leathers of all. Traditionally, it was made from the skin of a European mountain goat. Today however it exclusively refers to the flesh part of sheepskin. This is why it deserves its own section instead of including it above. As usual, the process is to sand and buff the skin, removing the grain and revealing the flesh split. It remains soft.It is surprisingly water absorbent. It makes the best with casual boots.
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Nubuck Leather :
Nubuck comes from cattle leather but the biggest difference with suede is that it comes from the grain part of the hide. It is sanded lightly to produce a similar soft nap, but coming from the grain means that it is much more resistance and water repellent. Therefore, it retains the velvet texture of suede and the durability of top-grain leather.
Shell Cordovan :
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Shell Cordovan is the cream when it comes to luxurious quality shoe leather. The most interesting thing about it is that it is not even a leather, not at least until after processing. Shell Cordovan is actually cut from the hind quarters of a horse. That’s right, one of the most expensive quality leather comes from horse butt.
Regular calf skin is porous, it creases with use specially around the vamp. Shell Cordovan on the other hand has no visible pores and instead of creasing, it ripples beautifully with time. Not only that, it is hard wearing, durable, generally water resistant and will last for decades with proper care. Cordovan shoes are known for its excellent finish and durability. These qualities make Shell very rare and expensive.
Vegetable Tanned Leather:
A raw hide is not great. It is stiff and putrefaction (decay and decomposition) presents a real problem. Firstly the hides are quickly salted. If you don’t salt the hide and keep it moist, it will start to rot, and once it starts rotting, it is over. The rotting destroys the grain. Lime, a very potent chemical is used to burn the hair off the hides.
The vegetable tanning process results in leather with a distinct appearance and unmatched durability. the vegetable-tanned leather has a much longer life than chrome-tanned leather. It is breathable and products such as shoes made with it get more comfortable the longer you use them. Vegetable-tanned leather also has a distinctively sweet, woody fragrance that is normally associated with leather. The process of vegetable tanning uses organic material and natural tannins derived from the barks, leaves and branches of trees and plants. This results in colors that are rich and deep in natural earthy tones such as browns, beiges, yellows and reds.
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The disadvantages of the tanning method used for traditional vegetable tanning include the heavy use of water. At least the discharge is not harmful to the environment due to the organic materials used. The time taken to produce a batch of leather is around two months, as compared to one day for chrome leather.
Like vegetable tanned leather, chrome leather goes through the tanning process but using chemicals and acidic salts that require shorter periods to treat the animal hides. Chrome leather is softer and has more color options compared to vegetable leather. It does not have the distinctive sweet fragrance associated with vegetable-tanned leather.
Vegetable-tanned leather shows the natural fibers of the animal hide, but these are not visible in chrome leather. However chrome leather is cheaper and widely available due to the automated tanning process and suitability for all kinds of leather goods.
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Patent Leather :
Introduced in the early 19th Century, Patent Leather comes with a very high glossy shine. The process comes from Japan and uses a complex lacquering method that smooths the exterior and give that high gloss finish.
And then there are many more kinds of leather:
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PU Leather
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Exotic Leather – Alligator & crocodile leather - American Alligator, Caiman, Freshwater Crocodile, Saltwater Crocodile.
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Anteater
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Camel Leather
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Chicken Leather
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Deerskin (One of the softest leather around)
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Lizard leather
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Shark skin
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Snake Leather
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And many more...
Every leather has unique properties and appearance. Some are better for comfort, while others better for durability or softness.