Discovering the World of Leather: A Guide to Common Leather Terms

When starting your leather crafting journey, you'll encounter a wide range of terminologies that have shaped leather's long and colorful history. Understanding these key leather terms will surely help you navigate the many leather options available for your next project.

Aniline Dyed
Leather dyed by immersion in a dye bath without a pigmented finish, resulting in a transparent finish that showcases the leather's natural markings. This process is reserved for the finest quality hides.

Armour Leather
Heavy veg-tan leather used for shoe soles and protective armor by historical re-enactors.

Belly
The part of the animal that covers the underside and upper part of the legs.

Buffed
Leather with its top surface grain removed by an abrasive or bladed cylinder, or less often by hand.

Calf
A young bovine animal not exceeding a certain weight.

Chrome Tanned
A process that uses soluble chromium salts, primarily chromium sulfate, to tan leather. Commonly used for garments, footwear, and upholstery.

Combination Tanned
Leather tanned with two or more tanning agents.

Corrected Grain
Leather with its grain layer partially removed by buffing and then embossed with a new surface.

Cowhide
Leather made from the hide of a cow.

Crocking
Transferring of color or finish from leather caused by abrasion or rubbing.

Crust
Tanned leather that is not colored or otherwise finished.

Distressed Leather
Leather dyed with one color over another (usually darker over lighter) to create rich highlights and an artificially aged appearance. This finishing process emphasizes the leather's characteristics, such as scars and wrinkles.

Flesh Side
The underside of the animal's hide. When looking at veg-tanned tooling leather, this will be the rough side.

Drum Dyed
The process of coloring leather by tumbling it in a rotating drum immersed in dye to allow maximum dye penetration.

Full Grain
Leather that has not been altered beyond hair removal, retaining all of the hide's original texture and markings. The best, strongest, and most durable layer of the hide.

Finish
The final process in the manufacture of leather.

Good Hand
A soft, supple leather that feels good to the touch.

Grain
The pattern characterized by the pores of the animal and visible on the outer surface of a hide or skin after hair removal.

Hand Antiquated
The process where skilled craftsmen hand rub a contrasting color to give an attractive, one-of-a-kind appearance to the leather surface.

Hand
A term that describes the leather's softness and feel.

Hide
The cured skin of a mature or fully grown animal of the larger kind.

Kidskin
Soft leather made from the skin of a young goat.

Hair Cell Grain
The noticeable appearance of where the hair pores were on the leather.

Latigo
Cowhide leather tanned for outdoor use.

Leather
A durable and flexible material created by tanning animal rawhides, mostly cattle hide.

Milling
A tumbling process in which tanned hides rotate in drums, combining heat and water misting to soften the leather or enhance the grain.

Natural Grain
Leather whose grain has not been altered, showing the natural appearance of the grain.

Nubuck
Leather that's sanded or buffed on the grain side to give a slight nap of short protein fibers, producing a velvet-like surface.

Oil Tanned
Leather tanned using oils to create a very soft, pliable finish.

Patina
A lustrous coating naturally created over time on pure aniline and nubuck leather surfaces when oils come into contact with the surface and change its appearance.

Pigment Finish
Leather with a finish containing fine pigment particles in suspension.

Pebble Grain
A cosmetic character resembling small pebbles on the leather's top side.

Printed
Leather bearing a surface pattern produced usually by embossing or silkscreen printing.

Protected
Leather bearing a surface pattern produced usually by embossing or silkscreen printing.

Pull-up
Leather that derives color from dyes, waxes, and/or oils. When pulled, this leather lightens, leaving a distressed look.

Pure Aniline
Hides which receive their only color from dyes and show natural markings and characteristics.

Rawhide
A hide that has only been treated to preserve it before tanning.

Re-tanned
Leather subjected to additional tannage with similar or other tanning materials.

Semi Aniline
Leather that has been aniline dyed or stained, incorporating a small quantity of pigment, while still showing its natural appearance.

Shrunk (en) Grain
Leather specially tanned to shrink the grain layer, resulting in a grain surface of uneven folds and valleys.

Side
Half of a whole hide with offal (head, shoulder, and belly) attached, obtained by dividing it along the line of the backbone.

Suede Split
Leather made from the flesh split of hide or skin and finished with a velvet-like nap.

Suede
Velvet-like nap finish produced on leather with abrasive action.

Tanning
The processing of perishable raw hides and skins by using tanning materials into the permanent and not putrescible form of leather.

Top Finish
A final coating of a finish given to leather to bring about special properties such as gloss and water resistance.

Top Grain
The top layer of a hide after the splitting process, either natural or embossed.

Temper
A characteristic of leathers defined by pliability and softness.

Vegetable Tanned
Leather tanned with natural extracts derived exclusively from vegetable sources.

Water-Resistant (Repellent) Leather
Heavily greased chrome-tanned or combination-tanned leather that is resistant (repellent) to water.

Wax(ed) (Waxy) Leather
Upper leather finished on the flesh side and dyed; vegetable tanned with a high content of hard grease, though not necessarily wax.