Frequently Asked Questions About Leather
Discover the answers to questions you may have about leather products. If you cannot find the information you're looking for here, please contact us and we'll follow-up as soon as possible and try to help to the best of our ability.
What's required for the best care for leather varies depending on the quality of leather. At Ravensgate, we use full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather, which is designed to last a long time without requiring too much maintenance. An occasional application of leather balm can help full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather maintain a fresher appearance for years. You shouldn't need to apply leather balm more than a few times per year depending on how frequently your leather is exposed to the elements.
We recommend using Smith's Leather Balm, which you can find here in our store. The best part about... Read More
Leather is made from the treated hides of animals, most commonly from bovine. The process of treating leather is known as "tanning". There are mainly two different methods for tanning: chrome tanning and vegetable tanning.
Chrome tanning uses chromium and other metallic blends to treat a hide. Vegetable tanning makes use of plant-based oils and tannins to treat a hide. Vegetable tanning takes much longer to complete but results in a more durable hide and is much more enviromentally friendly than chome-tanning.
Leather is made from the hides of animals, so no, it would not be considered vegan. There are vegan leathers, but these are generally made using plastic, which is why they tend to flake and fall apart after a short period of use.
Some manufacturers are producing plant-based leathers, such as cactus leather, but these are still reinforced with plastics and are not yet comparable to traditional leather in durability and toughness.
With proper care, full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather can last a lifetime and even be passed down to future generations. Of course, many variables can impact a leather product's individual longevity, such as if it's explosed to frequent sunlight, but in general, high-quality leather can last a long time.
Leather is densely packed with oils that help make it hydrophobic, but it is not truly waterproof. Water can still penetrate the pores of leather, so while it might be resistant to damage from water, it does not make for a waterproof product.
This depends on the quality of the leather. The full-grain leather that we use at Ravensgate has densely woven fibers. The density of these fibers is beneficial for the durability of the leather, but they also give it a measure of stiffness. Full-grain leather can stretch a bit over time, especially, let's say, if you stuff a wallet with more than it's meant to hold. However, the fibers will only yield so much stretch, so while there might be some flexing in leather, it should not stretch too much.
The leather products we make at Ravensgate are all hand-stitched. This is for two reasons. One, is that hand-stitching can be used to create a more stylish stitching line. Second, hand-stitching using the two-needled saddle-stitch method can produce a more durable product. Using this method, each individual loop of a stitching segment is tied off to itself, so if a loop were to be snagged and torn the entire thread will not unravel.