What is Imitation Leather?

Imitation leather is a substitute material for genuine leather.

Imitation Material

There are many different names given for imitation leather, Artico Leather, Faux Leather, Synthetic Leather, Bonded Leather, Nuluxe Leather, Piñatex Leather, SensaTec Leather, Fake Leather, Artificial Leather and many more.

Imitation Leather names vary depending on what country you are in which makes things extremely difficult for a member of the public to tell what material they actually have and if it’s genuine leather or not.

It’s becoming very difficult even for a professional to tell genuine leather from imitation leathers, there are many different ways of telling. Something that is imitation will feel much colder than genuine leather, you can also use your finger to rub along the leather and as your finger goes over the surface genuine leather grain will follow your finger where as imitation leather will stay ridged and not follow your finger.

Imitation leather is used in so many sectors today, some sectors are better suited for the use of this type of material like marine items and motorcycle and quad bikes.

Other areas that use a great deal of fake leathers are dentists and medical chairs, along with gym equipment.

A lot of public transport vehicles use imitation materials like trains, buses and restaurant seating. The reason for this is that it requires more regular cleaning, care, and replacement than other sectors.

Professionals who handle leather day in day out, can quickly tell just by looking at a material if its genuine or fake, and by touching the material.

FakeLeather.

Grain in genuine leather has a more irregular pattern to it, where as fake leather has a very regular pattern and when looking at this through a microscope this is more evident also as fake leather is more flatter looking under a microscope compared to genuine leather, where you can see grain structures and hair follicles.

The Haptic value of genuine leather is also very different to that of fake, Haptic relates to the touch, and look of the item’s characteristics and overall look and consistency of the structures and grain, it also referrers to the coldness of the items compared to genuine leather.

Fake leather on the reverse is normally made up of a material structure woven together in a cross pattern and can easily be distinguished this way as well.

Fake Leather From The Reverse