What is scalp skin?

What is leather?

What is water-dyed skin?

What is open edge pearl skin?

What is patent leather?

What is trimming?

What is embossed leather?

What is printed or burnt leather?

What is Scrub Leather?

What is suede leather?

What is laser skin?

What is regenerated skin?

What is artificial leather?

Leather distinction is the basic knowledge that the leather care industry and consumers need to master. Modern leather processing technology is more and more advanced, and there are more and more varieties of leather. It is far from enough to identify the authenticity and type from the thickness and density of pores on the leather surface. Mastering the knowledge of leather distinction, understanding the performance characteristics and expansion strength of leather, is of great help to the design and production of leather goods, the renovation, cleaning and damage repair of the leather care industry, and the purchase and use of leather goods by consumers of leather products.

∷ Looking at the world tanning industry, leather includes genuine leather, regenerated leather and artificial leather.

1. Leather:

It is the raw skin stripped from cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, deer or some other animals. After being tanned in tanneries, it is made into leather materials with various characteristics, strengths, textures, colors and patterns. Required materials. Among them, cowhide, sheepskin and pigskin are the three major types of skins used in tanning.

The dermis is divided into two types: the first layer and the second layer.

1. The top layer of skin is the cow, sheep, and pig skin with grain surface. The skin surface has natural scars and blood tendon marks. Occasionally, there are knife wounds during processing and the belly part with extremely low utilization rate. Imported The top layer of leather also has the number brand of the cow. Full-grain leather can be distinguished from animal leather by the size and density of pores. There are many types of hides, such as cow hides, beef hides, pastured hides, cow hides, bull hides, uncastrated bull hides and castrated bull hides. In our country, there are also yellow cowhide, buffalo cowhide, yak cowhide and yak cowhide. Among them, the pores of buffalo leather are thicker and sparser; the pores of yellow leather are finer and denser than those of buffalo leather. The pores of sheepskin are finer, denser and slightly inclined, mainly including sheepskin and goat skin. Pigskin is easy to distinguish because of the long hair rule of 3 to 5 pieces, so it is very easy to distinguish. Generally, artificially raised pigskin and wild boar skin are used. The famous one is South American wild boar, which has obvious characteristics. Pigskin pores and grain characteristics, due to its special collagen fiber structure, can be processed into very soft clothing leather or glove leather, which is of high value. In addition, ostrich skin, crocodile skin, short-nosed crocodile skin, lizard skin, snake skin, bullfrog skin, marine fish skin (including shark skin, cod skin, squid skin, eel skin, pearl fish skin, etc.), freshwater fish skin ( There are grass carp, carp skins and other scaly fish skins), fox skins with fur (silver fox skins, blue fox skins, etc.), wolf skins, dog skins, rabbit skins, etc. are easy to identify, and cannot be made into two-layer skins.

The head skin is directly processed from the raw skins of various animals, or the thick skins of cattle, pigs, horses and other animal skins are depilated and cut into two upper and lower layers, and the upper part with tight fibrous tissue is processed into various head skins. layered skin.

2. The two-layer skin is the loose two-layer part of the fibrous tissue, which is processed by spraying chemical materials or covered with PVC and PU films. Therefore, an effective method to distinguish the scalp from the second layer is to observe the fiber density of the longitudinal section of the skin. The head skin is composed of a dense and thin fiber layer and a slightly loose transition layer that is closely connected with it, and has the characteristics of good strength, elasticity and process plasticity. The second-layer leather has only a loose fibrous tissue layer. It can only be used to make leather products after spraying chemical raw materials or polishing. It maintains certain natural elasticity and process plasticity characteristics, but its strength is poor, and its thickness is required to be the same as the first layer. the same as the skin.

There are also various kinds of leather used in today's popular production. The leather surface processing technology is somewhat different, but the distinction method is the same.

The following is a detailed introduction to the various types of leather processed by the leather surface:

1. Water-dyed leather: refers to various soft leathers that are bleached and dyed in various colors with the top layer of cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, deer, etc.

2. Open-edged pearl skin: also known as film-coated leather, it is tossed in half along the spine, and the wrinkled belly and the top layer of the limbs or the second-layer open-edge cowhide are trimmed, and the surface is attached to it. All kinds of solid color, metallic color, fluorescent pearl color, magic color two-color or multi-color PVC film processing.

3. Patent leather: leather that is processed by calendering or matting after spraying various chemical raw materials with two-layer leather blanks.

4. Treatment: Grind off the scars and blood tendon marks on the surface, spray it with various popular color skin pastes, and press it into a leather with a grainy or smooth effect.

5. Embossed leather: It is generally made of trimmed leather or open-edged pearl leather to suppress various patterns or patterns. For example, imitation crocodile pattern, lizard pattern, ostrich skin pattern, python skin pattern, water ripple, beautiful bark pattern, lychee pattern, imitation deer pattern, etc., as well as various stripes, lattices, three-dimensional patterns or reflecting various brands Image creative patterns, etc.

6. Printed or branded leather: The material selection is the same as the embossed leather, but the processing technology is different. It is printed or ironed into a top layer or two layers of leather with various patterns or patterns.

7. Scrub leather: Polish the surface of the leather, abrad the grain scars or rough fibers, reveal the neat and even moist leather fiber structure, and then dye the top layer of leather into various popular colors.

8. Anti-suede leather: also called suede leather, it is a top layer leather made by grinding the surface of the leather blank into a velvety shape and then dyeing it in various popular colors.

9. Laser leather: also known as laser leather, the latest leather variety that uses laser technology to etch various patterns on the leather surface.

2. Regenerated skin:

It is made by smashing the leather and leather scraps of various animals, and then preparing chemical raw materials for processing. Its surface processing technology is the same as that of shaving leather and embossed leather. Its characteristics are that the edges of the leather are neat, the utilization rate is high, and the price is cheap; but the leather body is generally thicker and has poor strength, and is only suitable for making cheap briefcases and trolley bags. , ball bar sleeves and other stereotyped products and cheap belts, the fiber structure of the longitudinal section is uniform, and the coagulation effect of the mixed fibers of the fluid can be recognized.

3. Artificial leather:

Also called imitation leather or rubber, it is a general term for man-made materials such as PVC and PU. It is made by foaming or laminating of various formulas such as PVC and PU on a textile cloth base or non-woven fabric base. Patterns and other requirements are processed, and have the characteristics of a wide variety of colors, good waterproof performance, neat margins, high utilization rate and cheaper price than real leather, but most artificial leather, its feel and elasticity cannot reach the effect of real leather; its longitudinal On the cut surface, fine air bubbles, cloth or surface films and dry man-made fibers can be seen. It is a kind of material that has been extremely popular in the early days and is widely used to make various leather products, or part of the leather material. Its increasingly advanced production technology is being widely used in the processing and production of two-layer leather. Nowadays, artificial leather with characteristics similar to real leather is available in production. Its surface technology and the fibrous tissue of the base material almost achieve the effect of real leather, and its price is comparable to that of domestic top layer leather.

What is the difference between the first layer skin, the second layer skin and the regenerated skin of buffalo leather?

The top layer of skin is the surface layer of the leather. The top layer of skin is relatively thin and expensive, and the furniture made of it is comfortable and soft. Generally, the scalp is more than 10 yuan per square foot.

The second layer is the lower layer of the dermis. Two-layer leather is cheaper and harder, and it is also very common in the market. Generally, two-layer leather is 4-6 yuan per square foot. The distinction between the first layer of skin and the second layer of skin is to observe the fiber density of the longitudinal section of the skin.

The first layer of skin is composed of a dense and thin fiber layer and a slightly loose transition layer that is closely connected with it; the second layer of skin has only a loose fibrous tissue layer, which is processed by spraying chemical raw materials or polishing. Fold the leather in half and relax, the cowhide will disappear immediately, and the regenerated leather will not disappear.

Leather identification knowledge

1: Identify the dermis

Touch by hand: touch the surface of the leather by hand, if it feels smooth, soft, plump and elastic, it is genuine leather; while the general artificial synthetic leather surface is astringent, rigid, and has poor softness.

Seeing: The real leather surface has clearer hairs and patterns, the yellow leather has well-proportioned pores, the yak leather has thicker and sparser pores, and the goat leather has fish-scale pores.

Smell: all genuine leather has the smell of leather; and artificial leather has a strong pungent plastic smell.

Ignition: Tear a little fiber from the back of real leather and artificial leather, and after igniting, if it emits a pungent odor and forms lumps, it is artificial leather; if it smells of hair, it is genuine leather.

2. Identify artificial leather and synthetic leather

With the above four basic identification methods, it is obvious to compare and identify artificial leather and synthetic leather. In addition, artificial leather and synthetic leather have the following characteristics: Press the leather surface with your fingers, and there are no obvious pores and wrinkles. If there are wrinkles after pressing, they will not obviously disappear naturally. The leather surface has no pores, which is an important feature to identify genuine leather. The cut corners are burning and smelly, but not the burnt smell of hair.

3. How to distinguish cow leather, pig leather, horse leather and sheep leather

Different types of leather have different characteristics and uses. For example, cow leather has a fine surface and high strength, which is most suitable for making leather shoes and leather goods; sheep leather is light, thin and soft, which is an ideal fabric for leather clothing; pig leather has good air permeability and water vapor permeability.

Pig leather: The pores on the surface of the leather are round and thick, and the sloping pores extend into the leather. The pores are arranged in groups of three, and the leather surface presents many small triangle patterns.

Cow leather: Yellow cattle leather and buffalo leather are both called cattle leather, but there are certain differences between the two. The pores on the surface of the cattle leather are round, and extend straight into the leather. The pores on the surface of buffalo leather are larger than that of cattle leather, the number of pores is less than that of cattle leather, and the leather quality is looser than that of cattle leather.

Horse leather: The hair on the leather surface is also oval, with slightly larger pores than cattle leather, and the arrangement is more regular. Sheep leather: The pores on the leather surface are flat and round, with clear pores.

Quality identification of leather

The cowhide can be divided into multiple layers (up to 8 layers). The outermost layer is the top layer leather, which has the best quality, followed by the second layer leather, whose strength, elasticity and air permeability are not as good as the top layer leather. Car seats must use the top layer of leather. A type of composite leather currently on the market is a layer of adhesive film attached to the surface of the two-layer leather. The surface is delicate and looks very similar to the first layer of leather. Some businesses pretend to be the first layer of leather and deceive users. Pay attention to identification.

From a professional point of view, the identification of leather should be judged from the odor, specific gravity, light resistance, migration resistance, atomization, thermal yellowing, and friction resistance of automobile leather. Since most car owners do not have professional knowledge in this area, it is more difficult to judge, so you might as well use the following simple methods to identify.

1. Labeling method: The leather of the original factory will be marked with the date of manufacture, the name and area of ​​the leather factory, etc. on the back. Of course, the manufacturing date should not be too long, and the leather that is more than 3 years old should pay attention to whether there is mildew.

2. Smell method: Good leather should not have a pungent smell after processing, so too much solvent smell and paint smell is not good.

3. Heat-resistant method: it is best to ask the manufacturer for a small piece of leather, and touch the sample with a cigarette butt for about 2~3s, to avoid buying artificial leather products; burning with a lighter requires a longer time due to the large contact area .

4. Viewing method: Under a magnifying glass of 30 times, it can be seen that the outside of the leather is like the surface of the earth, with pits and holes, and its air permeability is good. The leather for automobiles needs special treatment such as abrasion resistance and light resistance, and the capillary part will be covered.

5. Cutting method: Cut the leather crosswise with a blade, and the color of the leather from the outer layer to the inner layer must be the same (black on the outside and dark gray on the inside, it is a normal phenomenon). Pay attention to whether there is abnormal color under the outer layer, so as to avoid buying second-hand leather that has been dyed or changed color.

6. Wiping method: Wipe the leather surface with stain remover oil, pay attention to whether there is fading and falling off, so as to avoid buying leather with secondary color change.

7. Origin method: All countries in the world produce leather, but only Europe (Northern Europe, Italy, Austria and Germany, etc.) has a relatively long history of leather industry. Naturally, its leather processing level will be much higher than that of low-grade Southeast Asian leather.

8. Document law: The leather of the genuine factory has clear source, origin, trademark, leather measurement items, and leather use authorization letter and other basic information.

9. Guarantee method: This is the easiest way. When buying leather chairs, don’t forget to ask the store if there is a guarantee service card. First, to avoid buying inferior leather, second to develop regular maintenance habits, and third to provide Permanent after-sales maintenance service can be described as the benefit of killing three birds with one stone.

The identification method of genuine leather and fake leather

1. Fingering method: Press the skin with your fingers, and there will be fine wrinkles on the surface. When the fingers are lifted, it is the dermis where the wrinkles disappear immediately. Artificial leather and synthetic leather are wrinkle-free.

2. How to use water: drop a little water on the leather, then dry the water stains, if you feel sticky and wet hands, it is genuine leather.

3. Perception method: Take the front of the leather and observe it carefully with your eyes. The leather has pores, while the artificial leather has no pores. Look at the back of the leather and look for the parts that are not folded. If it is a base fabric, it must be artificial leather or synthetic leather.