Know Your Leather

Leather Crazy You

So you're crazy about leather. Your leather envelope, leather padfolios, leather passport holders, wallets, belts, shoes, and bags say so. This obssession has led you to be finicky over leather items and it is no joke to give people like you leather items for gifts. What if you're at the giving end?

There are endless supplies of leather goods online and offline, wholesale and retail, and almost every imaginable item for men, women, teens, and children. If you are lucky, you can get discounted prices and rock bottom deals some lucky days of the year. The hitch lies in the choices of items and the kind of leather your recipient would love to have - and there's the price angle to mull over, too.

But how much do you know about leather? Leather is the processed hide of animals, and is differentiated by how it is made. Leather is processed by vegetable or chrome tanning, rawhide treatment, and boiling. The different procedures produce different types of leather suitable for different usesand products.

Know Your Leather

Boiled Leather -- Your leather bound book or hardback is an example of boiled leather. Boiled leather is not used for wearable items or upholstery because it is hard and unsuitable for the purpose.

Vegetable Tanning -- Vegetable-based ingredients are used to tan the animal hides. This process yields leather that is sturdy yet elastic. The big drawback is the leather's vulnerability to water. Exposed to water for long, the leather changes color, shrinks, and becomes hard. Leather tanned this way takes on different shades of brown..

Chrome Tanning -- This uses chromium or chrome salts to darken or tan the leather. The process allows the tanning of the leather in different colors, too, and helps preserve its suppleness and shape, in spite of contact to water.

Rawhide -- This is a process that requires the stripping down of the animal skins. Once thinned and roughened, these are soaked in a lime mixture and then stretched. This type of leather makes for sturdy shoes and laces. Incidentally, your much-loved band's drum head is made of this variety of leather.

Animal skins for leather are not restricted to cow hides. Even snake and crocodile skins make beautiful leather. Do not get fooled, loook into leather items according to [kind|type[/spin], class, grade, thickness, material content, toughness, serviceability, and price. Show them you know how to leather it up.