Leather – Vegetable Tanning

Vegetable tanning means the traditional tanning of leather with plant-based tannins. The tannins for vegetable tanning are produced from plant parts of trees and bushes such as the horse chestnut, golden wattle, tara- or quebracho-tree, and historically also from the oak or spruce. There are many diffe ences from chemical tanning, which is used to process most industrially used leathers. Vegetable-tanned leather products have a more natural, softer look that may change slightly over time when exposed to the sun and other outer influences;they are also more skin-compatible and contain no chrome-VI-compounds. Vegetable tanning gives the leather a particularly long lifetime. The plant-based tannins are also bio-degradable and the entire tanning process is more environmentally compatible
than chrome tanning would be. However, vegetable tanning requires much longer process times, better craftsmanship and therefore is more elaborate and expensive. In contrast to chemically tanned leathers, vegetable tanning does not permit any brilliant, unusual colours; the leather is less elastic and cannot be processed as thinly.