Leather 101: The Different Types Of Leather
Leatherworking has been around for as long as man has been eating meat. It’s an old craft with lots of tradition and terminology. This makes learning about the leather craft a whole lot of fun, but it can also make it confusing for consumers. When buying leather products, you want to make sure you know what you’re paying for. This often means wading through the marketing and learning some of the common terminology when it comes to different types of leather. If you’re looking for an all purpose leather cleaner and conditioner, we recommend Chamberlain’s Leather Milk.
About Cowhide
A cow, if you’ve never happened to see one, is a pretty big animal, so it has thick skin, and a lot of it. A whole cowhide is quite thick, and generally too thick to be useful for everyday leather products. So it’s usually cut down to be thinner and more useful for different purposes. (You can learn more about this from our last Leather 101 topic: Measuring the Thickness of Leather).
Cowhide is made of two main integrated layers – the corium and the grain. Collagen fibers in the corium are thinner and more flexible, and become tighter and thicker as they move up toward the grain, where the fibers are tightly packed and very sturdy. The corium becomes thicker with age, which is why calfskins are thinner, smoother and softer than the hides of older animals.
The top part of the grain faces outward toward the hair, and can contain blemishes like insect bites, stretch marks, scars, and brands. This means that the very top part of the grain is often buffed off to make the leather look more uniform.
Types of Leather Grades
- Top grain
- Full grain
- Split leather
- Bonded leather
When the leather is corrected in any way, it is called top grain. Leather with the entire grain intact is called full grain. Full grain leather, even though it may have blemishes, is more expensive and more sought-after than top grain leather because of its durability and longevity. Both full grain and top grain leathers are referred to as grain leather.
Among grain leathers there are three general categories: aniline, semi-aniline, and protected. Analine leathers (like Horween’s Chromexcel) are processed using soluble dyes to maintain their natural markings and texture, and do not have a surface pigment or coating. This makes them the most natural-looking leathers, but also more susceptible to scratching, fading and staining. Semi-analine leathers (like most bridle leathers) are treated with pigments and thus conceal more blemishes and have a more uniform coating, as well as staying more protected. Protected leathers have a non-leather coating sprayed or attached to the leather as a protectant.
The bottom part of the leather, the part that is split off from the grain at the grain/corium junction, goes by many different names, and it can get really, really confusing. Many people refer to this bottom layer of leather as “genuine leather”, however, the term isn’t used consistently and is also used to mean real leather as opposed to manmade faux leathers. More terms you may see: split leather, corrected leather, embossed leather, coated leather, Suede, Napa leather (again, not a consistently used term), painted leather, and more. For our purposes, we’re going to refer to it as split leather.
Source: Best Leather
