Real Leather

We all buy leather worth thousands every year, specially in winters when the ice fall continuously it is the leather products which save us and who can forget the shoes we wear all round the year but the real question is that many of us purchase leather products which we later on realise that they are not made of real leather but are synthetic material but this happens when we have spent for real and we get duplicate.

In emerging countries like India and china millions of people are cheated every day in leather product markets. But the real question is that how can we find or test that the leather product we are purchasing is made of real leather ?

Flame Test For Leather

Remove a tiny amount of the questionable material. Grip it firmly with a pair of tweezers (not the good pair you use for grooming). Light a match (or flick a lighter) and hold the material very close to the flame. If the material gets melty and smells like burnt plastic, then it's, well, plastic. If it burns and smells a hundred times worse than burnt plastic, it's leather. Whatever the case, air out the room afterwards if the test must be performed inside.Leather will burn without flame and give the flesh burning odour. where as all synthetics will catch fire (flame) because they are all polymer based (PVC/or PU)In the next posting I will post how to distinguish between Genuine leather and low grade leather .

Saliva Test For Leather

The Naked real leather will 'absorb' moisture (test by just applying a bit of your saliva) if it is real leather saliva will be absorbed by the leather but if the leather is not real the saliva will float.

Grain Test For Leather

Pull the leather strongly you will see the hair roots of the animal (if it is not a corrected grain leather) where as in fake either the print will refuse to disappear or can see only 'bald' grains lastly if none of these works for you.

Burn Test For Leather

Try to burn the corner of the material by lighter.Letaher will burn without flame and give teh flesh burning odour. where as all synthetics will catch fire (flame) because they are all polymer based (PVC/or PU) .
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Do understand the leather used for wallets are not the best ones they come for 3,4,5 grade of quality they normal give the 1 grade of leather which has minimum r even least scratch, bits ,etc.... to garments and jumbo bags makers then 1st and 2nd to shoes 3 to quality leather handbags and wallets (branded & high end buyers) 4 and 5 are also to wallets makers and small products makers most od 4 and 5 the grade leather r given a chemical patch they don't have a very natural look but carry an look of man made , they make chemical patch over the area where scratch and machines impressions are present