I am regularly asked questions, by friends & clients, that as a layman, how do we identify a genuine leather product. Today, I will share a few tricks and tips to identify a genuine leather product.
We can easily examine if a product is leather or not by smelling it closely. If the product is genuine leather, it will carry the mixed odour of tanning agents and chemicals used while tanning and processing the leather from raw to finished material.
If the product is non-leather, it is mostly made of polyurethane material (P. U) also known as leatherette / fake leather / artificial leather / faux leather / PU leather. Polyurethane is a petroleum by-product & hence it carries a typical petrochemical smell which can be easily identified by smelling the product.
Touch & feel is another simple test to check the genuineness of leather. In most of the cases, on the leather surface, we can easily slide our palms with least friction.
In the case of non-leather, if the product is made of P.U. coated material, there is more friction when we slide our palms over the surface. Most of the times, we may feel the surface a little sticky due to the gummy surface which is normally found on new P.U material.
Finally, the most accurate test can be done by observing the raw edge of the material. The raw edge can be found on the inner pockets, on some trims, folding & trimming portions or on the handles/straps, particularly check on the corners of its end parts.
Now that we have successfully found the raw edge without damaging & disfiguring the product, let us go through the characteristics of the rear side of leather and non-leather materials.
If the product is made of genuine leather, one can find natural fibrous surface on the rear/back side of the material. ( This fiber can be plucked very easily by hand with the help nails. Kindly take the consent of the shopkeeper before trying this😊).
If the product is made of non-leather material, then that artificial material must have some kind of supporting fabric on which the P. U is either coated or laminated. The support fabric on the rear side of the sheet material can be polyester, poly-cotton, poly-fleece or felt depending upon different quality & type of materials.
In the local markets, mainly with street side vendors, there is a crude method of demonstrating the genuineness of leather by burning the product with match sticks. It is true that leather won’t catch fire as easily as in the case of P. U. Also, P. U melts on contact with fire but leather won’t melt. Rather, the leather may get hardened by becoming more & more stiff & loosing its softness. This method is also infeasible because fire will disfigure the finished product.
We need not rely on this rudimentary method since we have better methods as listed above to check for the genuineness of a product.
Many shops dealing in genuine leather will generally display either leather sheets and/or leather swatches in their showroom as a means of demonstrating the genuineness.
Now that you know how to check for the genuineness of leather, go ahead & shop with confidence!!
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