What is faux leather?
Faux leather or synthetic leather or imitation leather or artificial leather or leatherette. PU (polyurethane) leather, PVC (polyvinyl chloride) leather, and microfiber leather are the three main forms of faux leather fabrics. Although those three types of imitation leather materials are not real leather, they may be used in a variety of items such as shoes, clothes, bags, and furniture.
What is PVC leather?
PVC (polyvinyl chloride) leather is using a range of fabrics including woven, knitted, or non-woven fabric as the substrate, combined with a PVC foam layer, then process the surface.
What is PU leather?
Knitted, woven, or non-woven textiles are used as the substrate for PU (polyurethane) leather, which is subsequently coated with polyurethane resin.
Click to Waltery PU leather products page.
EPU (solvent-free polyurethane synthetic leather) is a more environmentally friendly and healthy polyurethane leather that offers the following benefits.
- Less than 100 ppm DMF content
- Hydrolysis resistance for over 7 years
- The soft and full hand feel
- Excellent physical properties in general, notably considerably better peeling, resistance to scratching and abrasion
- Excellent environmentally-friendly property
- Can be made with certain grains and qualities
- There is no wastewater or exhaust gas.
- Energy usage is reduced.
- More
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DMF free water-based PU (or DMF free waterborne PU) is an upgraded eco-friendly and healthy PU imitation leather with superior qualities, the advantages of this PU are as follows.
- DMF content is ZERO
- Various fashion designs
- Each season brings new designs
- Soft and full hand feeling
- Top overall physical attribute
- Excellent environmentally-friendly property
- Can be made with certain grains and qualities
- There is no wastewater or exhaust gas
- Energy usage is reduced
- More
Click to know more about “What is DMF free water-based PU leather”.
Click to DMF FREE PU water-based for garments page.
What is microfiber leather?
Microfiber leather is based on a three-dimensional structure of microfiber nonwoven fabric, then coated with high-performance polyurethane resin. In terms of true leather feel and qualities, microfiber leather is often superior to other varieties of synthetic leather.
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What is real leather?
Genuine leather is derived from animals, such as pigskin, sheepskin, or crocodile skin. The initial layer of leather is either produced directly from the raw skin of various animals or is cut into upper and lower layers from the thick skin of cattle, pigs, and horses, for example. The upper section is treated to create the initial layer of leather. The second layer of leather is composed of PU resin and the animal skin’s bottom layer of skin or waste material. The second layer’s hardness, hand feel, and abrasion resistance are significantly lower than those of the first layer of leather.
Precautions for cleaning faux leather
High temperature, high humidity, low temperature, intense light, acid-containing solutions, and alkali-containing solutions all have an influence on fake leather and other materials because their qualities are different.
1). A location where you don’t want to be exposed to extreme heat (45 centigrade). Extreme heat will alter the look of the fake leather and cause it to stick together. As a result, imitation leather should be kept away from heat sources such as the stove and the sun. Cleaning should be done with a clean cloth or sponge, or with a moist cloth.
2). Do not store in temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius, since this can cause the synthetic leather to freeze, fracture, and stiffen.
3). Do not place the area in a humidified environment. High humidity will cause the imitation leather to hydrolyze, resulting in surface damage and shorter service life. Cracking and hardening will occur if the humidity is too low.
4). Use a dry wipe and a damp wipe to clean the synthetic leather items. When using a wet wipe, make sure the area is completely dry; if there is any moisture left behind, it may cause hydrolysis. Bleach should not be used since it might cause gloss and color changes.
Is it better to have faux leather or real leather?
In general, real leather (particularly first layer leather) items are more expensive than imitation leather products, therefore it’s easier to convince people that real leather is superior to synthetic leather. In reality, this is not the case. Leather is pricey for a variety of reasons. Such as limited resources and the time-consuming processing of animal hides. Nowadays with the development of technology, nature leather can not achieve many excellent properties of imitation leather (especially solvent-free PU leather and DMF free water-based PU leather and microfiber leather). Because of its high performance, health, good uniformity, animal-friendly, and eco-friendly properties, Europe and the United States are increasingly choosing synthetic leather over real leather.
1. Faux leather quality worse than real leather?
Answear: No. There are many types of faux leather like PVC leather, PU leather, microfiber leather etc and each type also has many series (for example, PU leather has traditional PU leather, solvent free PU leather, dmf free water based PU leather etc). Solvent free PU leather is with more than 7 years of hydrolysis and microfiber leather is with top properties as well and they are excellent replacement for real leather (biggest brands like Tesla, IKEA etc are using them).
2. Is faux leather vegan?
Answear: yes, it is.
3. Is faux leather eco friendly?
Answear: yes, it is eco friendly and can meet REACH and OEKOTEX even more. DMF free water based PU is with 0 DMF and there is no waste water and exhaust gas during production and also it consumes less energy and other types of faux leather are also eco friendly.
4. How long does faux leather last?
Answear: It is very hard to say, because it depends on how to use this faux leather products and different types of faux leather. Solvent free PU leather can meet 7 weeks hydrolysis (that means 7 years) and microfiber leather is also with top properties.
5. What are the prices for faux leather?
Answear: It depends on quality and types, but the top faux leather is not cheap. In general, it still has prices advantage if compare with real leather.
6. Which type of faux leather is best?
Answear: It is very difficult to tell. If eco friendly performance is considered, the best one is dmf free water based PU leather. If best quality, microfiber leather and solvent free PU leather are with very top quality.
7. Are faux leather, synthetic leather, artificial leather, imitation leather same material?
Answear: Yes, they are same. Just different names.
This article is written by The Waltery China.
Waltery, as a top Chinese faux suede, faux leather supplier, is specialized in DMF FREE water-based PU, SOLVENT FREE PU, TRADITIONAL PU, microfiber leather, faux suede development, production, and exporting.