A List of the Most Common Leather Finishes

Understanding the exact finish of the leather you’re buying is an important consideration. Unless you’re armed with the right information, you might end up getting a leather product that doesn’t suit your needs, or worse, pay more than you have to!

Some leathers impart a certain feel, others to give products a certain look. Different types of leather finishes focus on protecting the leather from moisture damage and staining. To add even more confusion, some leather finishes contain no actual surface leather at all.

Continue reading to learn more about the most common types of leather finishes and what they offer.

Napa

Napa leather is characterized by its soft, supple feel. It can be dyed or natural-colored, and can be used to make any product. Napa leather is tanned using a combination of the vegetable tanning technique, mixed with alum salt tanning. You might also see “Nappa” finishes advertised, which also refer to a soft, supple leather product. The main difference is that Napa is always genuine animal hide, whereas Nappa is a term that can be legally used to market both real and faux leather products.

Aniline-Dyed

Aniline-dyed leather is soaked in a transparent dye containing no colors. The purpose here is that the dye makes the natural markings in the leather stand out. Because of this, only the highest quality top layer leather is used, since any and all color variations in the animal skin will stand out. Some people mistakenly feel aniline to be the best finish available, but this is purely subjective as semi-aniline often looks more even toned and pleasing to the eye.

Semi-aniline

Semi-aniline leather takes the aniline process a step further to ensure a meticulous, even colored finish on the exposed leather. Semi-aniline leather involves finishing aniline treated leather with a pigment-colored top coat to remove variations in coloring on the surface of the leather. A protective top coat is then applied to seal in the colors.

Suede

The idea behind a suede finish is very simple. While the outer layer of the animal hide is most often used to make up the outside of a leather product, suede has the underside layer of the leather on the outside, to give it a rougher, more grainy feel. Since the inner layer is more porous, suede is much more susceptible to moisture damage.

Embossed

Embossed leather is simply leather that has an image, design, or color pattern stamped or dyed into it. You can buy leather that’s already been embossed, or by using DIY kits that allow for embossing leather at home.

Transfer

A transfer finish is essentially the same as an embossed finish. The only exception being that a transfer is an image or color pattern formed on the leather by “transferring” dye onto it. If you’ve ever experienced staining on leather seats in your car or home, you’ve essentially got the gist of how easily leather can absorb dye permanently.

Nubuck

Nubuck leather can be made from any layer of leather and born from any of the many common tanning procedures used today. The leather is carefully buffed and polished on the grain side of the leather to make it feel velvety soft to the touch.

Hair-on-Hide

Just as the name suggests, leather with this finish will still have the animal hair intact. Common products include coats, boots, blankets, gloves, and rugs. Animals such as deer, buffalo, zebra, camel, mink, and several other animals are used to make this type of leather.

Reptile

Reptile finished leather is made from the skins of reptiles like crocodiles, alligators, lizards, and snakes.

Rubbed, Oil, and Waxed Finished Leather

Regardless of which of these finishes you’re looking at, they all involve the same process, using different degrees of oils to make the finished leather have a set look, feel, and level of protection from the elements. Rubbed will use a lighter oil to saturate the top layer of leather; oil will impart a slightly higher sheen on the leather product; and waxed will give the leather a slippery, shiny look similar to how a car looks after being waxed. Each offer incrementally higher degrees of protection from moisture for use in the outdoors.

Bonded “Reconstituted” Leather

Bonded, also called “reconstituted” leather, isn’t a natural product by any means. Leather scraps left over from the leather trimming, shaping, and shaving process are ground up and then added to a mixture containing binders. The process is very similar to how wood shavings are reconstituted to make particle board. Once bonded leather is reformed and stretched into a hide-like form, it’s laminated to both protect and impart a shine to the finished material. This product is most commonly used in furniture, book covers, and fashion accessories.

Bicast “Split” Leather

Bicast or “split” leather means that the product has a leather backing to reinforce it for strength. The top is made of dyed polyurethane to impart an even color pattern. Bicast is best used for furniture items, as the polyurethane top layer doesn’t allow it to breathe.

There are many other finishes you’ll find out there, many which are synonymous with those listed on this page. As you can see, finish is very important, especially considering some “leather finishes” may not in fact be 100% leather at all.