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• Leather types

Maybe you are not quite sure what kind of leather your upholstered furniture is made of?

You can find help here!

When you choose leather you are bringing a wonderful, durable, fine creation of nature into your living room. Its suppleness, breathability and natural quality are what make it so sought-after. Leather comes from a natural product – it is obtained from animal skins and therefore bears signs of an individual lifestyle. But not all leather is the same. There are different types of leather, depending on how it was made.

A distinction is always drawn between SMOOTH LEATHER and SUEDE (nubuck, velours). With smooth leather, the upper side of the animals hide is used, as seen by the skin pores. With suede, the surface is sanded and roughened. This is done to conceal hide damage and also to make use of split animal hides. A short video illustrates the differences:

SMOOTH LEATHER has always been sought-after as a stylish material for covering upholstered furniture, particularly because of its exclusive character and appeal. Leather is natural, breathable an hard-wearing. Looked after properly and with regular care, it is long-lasting and comes with a supple, natural feel 

With smooth leather is it (unfortunately) true to say that the more expensive and exclusive the leather is the more sensitive it is.

PURE ANILINE leather: The exclusive

very soft, warm and pleasant surface extremly breathable   skin pores are still very easily visible as subtle holes as aniline is dyed all the way  through (clearly seen through a magnifying glass) unfortunately very sensitive, stains fairly easily and shows signs of wear stains often difficult to remove not particularly recommendable for families with children and pets

SEMI-ANILINE leather: The IN-BETWEEN

soft, pleasant feel having been dyed all the way through, the leather is only given a thin coating of dye the skin pores are still slightly visible (through a magnifying glass) most soiling can be removed without a problem

PIGMENTED / COVERED LEATHER: the easy care

somewhat stiffer, moderately warm feel skin pores are no longer visible as they are covered with a coating of dye which conceals them very hard wearing, making is very suitable for everyday use hardly prone to soiling very easy to clean, almost all stains can be removed with the appropriate KERALUX® cleaners

Here in this video we show you the various types of smooth leather:

SUEDE, also called nubuck leather or velour, distinguished by a velvety surface. This effect is achieved by sanding the surface or underside of split leather hide. The roughened, velvety surface of this leather type rules out the application of a dye coating after barrel dyeing because the fibres would stick together.

Suede leather is sometimes produced from animals that live in the wild, such as deer, stags etc. As a result of living in the wild, the skin surface is heavily scarred which is why the underside of the skin (flesh side) is mostly used. It is roughened to produce a velour leather. Would you have known?

very soft and skin-friendly feels very supple and warm velvety soft nap as seen by the "writing effect", i.e. stroking over nubuck leather with the hand shows the "stroking direction" as this changes the direction of the roughened fibres.

Other types of leather:

FOIL-COVERED LEATHERS:

PULL-UP LEATHER

Pull-up leather is the name given to smooth or nubuck leathers that have been provided with an oily, fatty or waxy finish on the surface. In most cases, furniture shows pronounced signs of use/wear even in the showroom, this "patina" is typical and intended.

Saddle leather