Leather Origins and Making
Where Leather Comes From and How It Is Made
Leather is tanned animal hide, mostly cattle. See the four stages of the leather making process, hides vs skins, and how faux leather differs.
Leather is the skin or hide of an animal that has been tanned so it does not decay. Most of it comes from cattle, with sheep, goats and pigs well behind. The leather making process has three core stages, preparation, tanning and crusting, and many leathers also get a finishing stage.
This hub sums up each part of that journey and links to the page that answers it in full.
Key takeaways- Hides and skins are mainly a by-product of animal production.- Tanning is the step that turns a raw hide, which goes hard and rots when wet again, into flexible leather.- Chrome tanning is the most common modern method; vegetable tanning is the oldest.- Faux leather skips the animal entirely: it is plastic coated onto a fabric or paper carrier.
From animal to hide
About 65% of leather comes from cattle hides, about 13% from sheep, about 11% from goats and about 10% from pigs. Most hides come from domesticated animals, and they are processed either fresh or salted. The UNIDO Leather Panel calls hides and skins an end product of animal production, "more correctly a by-product".
For the full answer, see where leather comes from and which animals leather comes from. Related pages cover the animals used to make leather, a longer list of leather animals, what leather is made of and what leather is made from.
Hides, skins and cowhide
In the trade, "hide" means the skin of a large animal such as a cow or buffalo. "Skin" means the skin of a smaller animal such as a goat, sheep, deer or pig. Neither is leather until it is tanned. A raw hide dries hard and rots when it gets wet again.
- What are hides and skins in leathermaking? covers trade terms, weight classes and kips.
- Hide vs leather explains the raw material vs the finished material, with rawhide in between.
- What are cow hides? covers cowhide as leather and as hair-on rugs.
- For short definitions, see what are hides and skins.
The leather making process in four stages
Wikipedia's summary of leather production groups the work into the stages below. The operations within each stage vary with the type of leather.
Our step-by-step page, where leather comes from and how it is made, walks through each operation. For the oldest tanning method, see what vegetable-tanned leather is.
| Stage | What happens | Typical operations | Fact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0. Curing (before the tannery) | Salt stops the hide from decaying on the way to the tannery | Salting, then drying for 3 to 6 days | – |
| 1. Preparation (beamhouse) | Hair, flesh and unwanted proteins come off, and the hide is opened up | Soaking, liming, unhairing, fleshing, splitting, deliming, bating, pickling | – |
| 2. Tanning | Tanning agents stabilize the hide proteins, mainly collagen, so it no longer rots | Chrome (wet blue, about one day) or vegetable tannins from bark | – |
| 3. Crusting | The leather is thinned, lubricated and often dyed, then dried and softened | Shaving, retanning, dyeing, fatliquoring, drying | – |
| 4. Finishing (optional) | The surface gets its final look | Oiling, buffing, coating, polishing, embossing | – |
Suede and patent leather
Suede and patent leather are made by working different layers of the hide, or by giving it a different surface. Suede is made from the underside of a split, which is the lower layer left once the grain is separated. Patent leather is a finishing story, so it has its own page.
See where suede comes from and how patent leather is made. Grain types such as full-grain and top-grain sit in our leather types guide.
How faux leather is made differently
Faux leather, also sold as synthetic leather, PU leather, leatherette or pleather, contains no hide. A common method coats an embossed release paper with layers of PVC or polyurethane, adds a fabric layer, cures the stack and peels the paper away.
Read how faux leather is made for the full process. Two narrower pages cover how fake leather is made and how synthetic leather is made. For the side-by-side comparison, see real vs faux leather.
Old tanneries, smell and waste
Early people probably dried hides in air and sun, then over fire. Later they found that bark, twigs and leaves soaked with the hides helped preserve them. As late as the 18th century, a hide could take nearly a year to become leather.
Tanneries smell partly because removing hair gives off hydrogen sulfide and deliming gives off ammonia. One tonne of hide can produce 20 to 80 m³ of wastewater, which adds to the load on treatment plants.
Where to see the hide named
Some makers name the exact hide on each product. Leather Collection men's leather jackets come in cowhide, sheepskin, lambskin or goatskin, and the leather is listed on every product page. Care questions belong to our leather properties and care hub.
FAQ
How did they tan leather in the old days?
Early people probably dried hides in air and sunlight, then over a fire. Later they found that bark, twigs and leaves soaked with the hides preserved them. Vegetable tanning, which uses tannins from plant matter such as bark, is the oldest known method.
Why did tanneries smell?
Hair removal gives off hydrogen sulfide, deliming gives off ammonia, and the wastewater is described as foul-smelling.
What is 100% real leather called?
No single grade name means "100% leather." In US guidance, a product should be labeled with the unqualified word "leather" only if all its substantial parts are leather. The label "genuine leather" is not a grade.
HitKB Editorial Team
HitKB articles are researched from published sources, cited in the text, and reviewed before publication.