There are many kinds of leather in the market and the price is different, so we share methods with customers and make them know how to identify leather. There are four main methods to identify leather. I will mainly talk about these methods below.
“Real leather” is a common word in the leather market. It is a customary name for natural leather to distinguish synthetic leather. In the consumer’s mind, “Real leather” also has a non-fake meaning. In fact, real leather is leather, which is mainly processed from mammalian animal skins.
How to identify leather ?-Four methods
Handfeel
Touch the leather surface with your hands. If it is smooth, soft, plump, and elastic, it feels like real leather. However, the surface of general artificial synthetic leather is astringent, rigid, and has poor flexibility.
Use your eye seeing
The real leather surface has clear pores and patterns. The yellow cowhide has relatively well-proportioned fine pores. While yak hides have coarser and sparse pores. Goatskin has scaly pores. Pigskin has large triangular pores. The artificial leather, although it also imitates the pores, is not clear.
Let me introduce the features and identification methods for how to identify leather: pig leather, horse leather, cow leather, and sheep leather.
Cow leather has a fine surface and high strength. Meanwhile, it is most suitable for making leather shoes. Sheep leather is light, thin and soft, making it an ideal fabric for leather garments. Pig leather has good air permeability and water vapor permeability. And it is more suitable for making underwear and children’s products. Horse leather has a tighter fiber structure and higher strength. So it is better for making leather pants and boots. Generally speaking, the thickness, density, and distribution of pores on the leather surface are the main basis for distinguishing cow & pig leather, horse, and sheep leather.
How to identify leather ?-Smell
All real leather has the smell of leather. And artificial leather has a strong irritating plastic smell.
How to identify leather ?-Igniting
Tear off a little fiber from the back of real leather and artificial leather. After lighting, all that emits a pungent smell and lumps are artificial leather. Anything that emits a hair odor and does not form lumps is genuine leather