What Is Llama Leather?
Llama Leather Hide Slate Blue
Llama Leather is extremely resistant compared to cow leather, this is due to the extreme cold conditions they live in.
Some tanneries say it’s 15 x more resilient than bovine hide.
Llamas have a long history, more than people can imagine, a lot of people believe they are a new species of animal, but ancestors of the Llama go back some 40 million years.
Most Llamas are found in Peru, they love Llamas so much everywhere you go you will find gifts about Llamas.
Llamas produce fantastic wool, it’s a very string dense wool and provides great warmth retention. Llamas have an outer layer that’s coarser than the under layer, what’s amazing about this Llamas wool is its fibres are hollow, making for a better heat retention than traditional wool also by the same weight, the under layer is also used for spinning yarn.
Llamas rugs can be very costly to make, a Llama rug that’s around 4.5 metres x 3.6 metres is around £17,000 to purchase and takes around 24 weeks to manufacture. Rugs like this take a great deal of care to maintain to ensure the wools is kept in great shape.
A great deal of Llama leather skins are veg tanned and used mainly in the fashion industry for purses, wallets, handbags, shoes and jackets, as well as other fashion items.
Some Llama hides are given a pigmented finish depending on where it is being used and for what purpose, but the majority are left natural vegetable dyed using natural extracts from plants and trees.
Taking care of such natural leathers isn’t easy but using a luxury leather cleaner and specialist waxes and colours these can be restored easily with these types of products.
Llama Hide Golden Yellow
What you can’t do is spot clean this type of leather, you have to clean the full item from seam to seam. With natural veg tanned leathers it’s also possible the colour will darken slightly when cleaning.