Vegan leather, PU, genuine leather: what the labels actually mean

Leather terminology online is deliberately confusing. Here is what each term actually means.

Full-grain leather

The top layer of the hide with its natural grain intact. The strongest kind, and the only one that develops a patina. Most expensive.

Top-grain leather

The same layer, sanded to remove marks. More uniform, slightly less durable, common in mid-priced goods.

Genuine leather

This sounds like a quality claim. It is not. It refers to the lower layers of the hide left after the top is removed. It is real leather, but the weakest grade.

Bonded leather

Leather scraps ground up and glued onto a backing. Peels within a year or two.

Vegan leather and PU leather

These mean the same thing: polyurethane plastic on a fabric base. No animal product, and often a perfectly reasonable material for a slim card wallet, where flexibility matters more than decades of wear. The problem is only when it is sold as something it is not.

How to tell

Real leather has irregular grain, smells like leather, and warms in your hand. Plastic has a repeating pattern and stays cool.

We state the material on every product page, plainly, including when something is vegan leather.