Leather is a popular high quality type of fashion material. Before being made into premium leather, it has to undergo a process called tanning to keep the leather from being damaged over time and making the surface more shiny and beautiful. Before being the final product, leather is also coated with paint to create shade and color. Therefore, leather products are quite expensive. As the demand for leather is increasing, along with the development of technology, the phenomenon of imitation products appears. But the way to distinguish between genuine leather and fake leather is not well recognized, especially for branded men's shoes.

Characteristics of genuine leather

On real leather products, there are letters like genuine leather, real leather, 100% leather. Except for fashionable leather products such as handbags, wallets and high-end leather shoes, these are not written because they will reduce their aesthetics. In addition, many sophisticated imitation leather products now contain these words. So it's harder to distinguish between genuine leather and fake leather.

Currently, there are two popular types of imitation materials:

- Simili: cheap and is covered with a layer of polyester on the surface, so it should be very glossy. Just look and touch it, you can distinguish them.

- PU leather: soft, high-qualified. You can be mistaken for genuine leather. However, the PU nature is still an artificial synthetic compound that can peel off over time.

How to distinguish real leather and fake leather

Look closely at the product

Look carefully at the surface of the leather. In term of genuine leather, the surface will have dents, depending on the degree of processing but still leave traces of relative roughness. Meanwhile, the surface of imitation leather will be flat. Thoroughly looking at the real eather, you will see small pores that can be seen with conventional lenses, with no cracks or stretch marks. The surface of the fake one will be smooth and flat due to its industrial making. This method will be difficult to apply if the leather has been made into products such as clothing, shoes, bags, purses, belts,...

Touch the product

If you have experience in using and possessing many genuine leather products, place your hand on the surface of the product and feel it. If you are a fake leather, you will feel the smoothness of the plastic layer made of synthetic materials. This will be clearer when you touch the surface of the leather in the winter, you will feel cold but you will feel soft and smooth whenever you touch the real one.

Get to know the smell

Products made of animal leather usually have animal fats and the smell of animal skin, while synthetic leather has smell of synthetic resin and plastic or resinous chemicals like smell of paint, gasoline.

Burn products

You get a very tiny piece of leather on the fire, it has smell of organic compounds like the smell of barbecue if it is genuine leather while the artificial leather will have a smell of burned plastic.

Click on the product

Use your thumb and press firmly on the surface of the product. If it is genuine, leave a dent around the thumb. However, when you remove your hands, the indentation will lose proof of the elasticity of the leather surface. With fake leather, it is not possible to obtain this elasticity, the indentation will also be dulled by artificial layers.

Observe the product

Observing a cutting side of the leather, you will notice that the real one consists of uneven fibers. So, when you use your fingers to shave on the surface, they will have no obvious change. While with fake one, they will be scratched.

Make the product wet

Add a few drops of water to the surface of real one, after a few minutes, you will see the water spread to penetrate the leather. The real one absorbs moisture, and the fake material is impervious to water, so the water will roll from the surface of artificial leather.

Observe the color of the product

The color of the fake leather is always bright and has a variety of colors, while the real leather's color is darker.

And the last way you can buy real leather dress shoes is to find a reliable leather shoes supplier. You can come to Banuli - a high-end men's shoe store that I have always believed in - and apply the above methods to try the quality of their product. Currently, Banuli is present in Ho Chi Minh City - 215 Quang Trung, Ward 10, Go Vap, or 465 Huynh Van Banh, Ward 13, Phu Nhuan (hotline 09 67 69 67 69).