What Is Aniline Leather?
Aniline Leather Skin
Full Aniline, the most attractive and natural leathers which are prized for their soft natural feel. These are leathers which have been aniline dyed in a vat process with no colour coating added to the surface.
They are the most expensive leathers to produce because only the very best selection of hides can be used to produce full aniline leathers.
Full aniline dyed leathers are more susceptible to absorbing liquids because of the natural porosity of the hide, because they don’t have a top coating the leather breathes more easily and is cooler to sit on.
Aniline leather is very absorbent and has its problems, so this needs full protection against the elements of daily use.
A way of telling if you have aniline leather is to place a drop of water in a hidden area and leave for a few minutes, this will soak in. If this continues to sit on the surface, this doesn’t mean you don’t have aniline it could just be a well-protected aniline to avoid stains.
Looking through a microscope, maybe your only hope in this situation. The microscope will show you all the flaws in the skin and its natural markings that you don’t get with other hides.
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There are many forms of aniline leather as there are of other types of leather finishes, from a semi aniline, to a waxy pull up aniline leather.
Semi aniline means its aniline dyed through, then a lacquered finish is applied that has a small amount of pigmentation in it, to even out the dyed surface to make it look better.
All leather begins life as an aniline other than veg tanned leathers, these are tanned using natural materials like oak bark and leaves from certain trees and plants.