Bag materials can be divided into leather and artificial leather, which is the crucial difference between luxury and low-cost bags. Leather is made of raw animal hair through special processing, which can be subdivided into first-layer cowhide and second-layer cowhide. Artificial leather is made of PVC and Pu with different formulas, foaming, or film covering.
1 Look at the cortical surface.
The difference between genuine leather and artificial leather is quite big. We can see some differences between them with the naked eye. There are clear pores on the surface of genuine leather. The more advanced the cortex is, the more obvious the texture is irregular, and the luster is soft. The artificial leather has no pores. Even if the anti-leather pore pressing pattern is added, there will be no pores, and the luster is as bright as ten layers of wax. There are clear pores and patterns on the leather surface. The pores of cow leather are delicate and dense, irregularly arranged, and the leather is smooth; Cattle hide has fine symmetrical pores, yak skin has thick and sparse pores, and goatskin has fish scale pores. Of course, shaved leather has “cosmetic surgery” on the surface with natural leather. This leather has almost lost its original surface and cannot easily see pores. Although imitation leather technology is now very advanced, the pores are very regular; you can still tell whether it is artificial imitation leather.
2 Look at the closing section of the cortex.
You can turn over the leather edging of cow leather bags and wallets and see some in the leather edging section. Therefore, the leather cortex is loose and sparse, with animal fibers, while the artificial leather is relatively tight and without fibers. It can’t be the same as genuine leather on edge, no matter how good imitation leather is.
3 Press the leather surface with your fingers.
If you feel it, the feel of leather is soft and smooth, while synthetic leather is rough and rugged. It’s abstract, but the difference is quite apparent when you touch it. When you press the leather with your fingers, the wrinkles on the leather surface will disappear immediately. Artificial leather and synthetic leather have no wrinkles, and wrinkles will not disappear naturally after individual pressing.
4 Pinch the cortical surface with your fingernails.
The nail marks pinched out will soon disappear and return to their original state. What cannot be restored or restored for a long time is fake skin.
5 Smell the skin.
Artificial leather has a strong or weak plastic smell, while leather is the smell of natural leather. Genuine leather and fake leather can also be distinguished by smell. Genuine leather has a fishy smell of animals, while the smell of plastic relatively more stimulates fake leather. Although some dermis has been beautified and added with other substances, it still smells like animals.