Can Faux Leather Substitute Real Leather?

Many people these days prefer to wearing faux leather (synthetic leather) as opposed to real one. Their reasons are many and diverse: from wanting to protect animals from harm, or for pure economic reasons, there are many motives why many people choose to wear faux leather.

Artificial leather is generally made either of poromeric imitation leather, corfam, koskin or leatherette, which are all basically different types of plastic.

A well-made leather piece has the ability to look and work like leather from a visual point of view.

However, faux leather cannot have the exact same look as real leather, as, since it's a synthetic material, it will not feature organic, random scratches of marks that real leather presents. Artificial leather is generally smooth and very even. Moreover, faux leather will only last about 2 years until it begins to peel off. While natural leather can be re-painted, there's not much you can do to a faux leather piece until it goes bad.

Therefore, to sum it up, we can say that faux leather can look almost as good as real leather, but a trained eye will be able to tell the difference and it won't last as long either.

When it comes to the feel of faux leather, things start to change. A well-made garment that is more expensive and generally bought from a trusted brand can be comfortable and feel good, even though it won't be as in sync with your body and the weather as real leather is. Real leather is a great material, as it keeps you warm in the winter and cool in the summer; it lets your body breathe and it molds easily, becoming more flexible in time, but at the same time, stronger.

Given its artificial nature, faux leather cannot do all these things and won't adapt its properties to any organic factors. Therefore, if you wish to wear faux leather, you should know exactly for what type of weather you are wearing it and, if needed, how you can compensate for the lack of warmth/chillness you will get. Note that faux leather feels quite uncomfortable against the bare skin. This phenomenon is best seen in shoes, which tend to mess with your feet really quickly if made from faux leather and worn too much or in the wrong conditions (rain, cold, high temperatures, etc.)

Additional information

It is generally known that faux leather products are less expensive than real leather products. However, a good leather jacket can last up to more than 10 years if taken care properly. Therefore, if you wish to care for the environment and animals, you still need to remember that a faux leather piece (regardless of whether it's shoes, a jacket or pants), is made from synthetic materials that create a lot of pollution and that harm the environment, making some places unsafe for animals. Moreover, given that faux leather products are made from synthetic materials and go bad quite fast, they will contribute to the general waste of the planet, which harms the animals and the environment. Remember that, unlike real leather, faux leather is not bio degradable. If you consider ditching faux leather too and going only for cotton or other materials made from plants, you should know that cotton plantations are worked by machines that also have a negative impact on the lives of animals. While this is not necessarily always the case, not wearing leather can actually cause more damage to animals, and, unless you grow your own crops and make your own materials, there is a certain process involves that has a negative impact on something, so our recommendation is to do your research well and know the whole picture before deciding on something. In the end, people have used animals for as long as we've been around to dress and cover and, in a way, it is part of the circle of life: any gain implies a sacrifice and it's up to you to decide which way you wish to go.

To conclude, we can say that a faux leather item cannot have the same quality as an item made from real leather. However, faux leather can be worn if you want to have the style that leather gives you, but don't want to harm animals or don't have the means to purchase real leather.

It takes a lot of time to find garments made from quality faux leather, but they are out there and, if you search enough, you can find something that is really great and can work to your advantage in more ways than one.

Fraquoh and Franchomme