Leather Types
What Is Buckskin Leather?
Buckskin is soft deer leather made by brain tanning and smoking; today the name often means dyed sheepskin. How it is made and how it compares.
Buckskin is a soft, pliable, porous leather traditionally made from deer hide using the Native American method of brain tanning and smoking. Today the name is also used for a strong, soft, yellowish or grayish leather that is usually made from sheepskin. So "buckskin" on a label can mean a method, a look, or both.
This answer is part of our leather types guide.
Buckskin meaning: traditional vs commercial
| Column 1 | Traditional buckskin | Commercial "buckskin" |
|---|---|---|
| Animal | Usually deer | Often sheepskin; dictionaries list deer or sheep |
| Process | Fat scraped off, hide worked with brain, then smoked | Can be chrome-tanned and dyed to look like buckskin |
| Color | Dark honey if smoked; lighter, even white, if not | Yellowish or grayish |
| Surface | Soft and porous | Often a suede finish, per Collins |
How traditional buckskin is made
The tanner scrapes the extra fat from the hide and works animal brain tissue into it. Then the hide is wrapped around a smoky fire so the smoke stays trapped in it for many hours. Brain and smoke together give the soft feel and honey color; the smoke also keeps insects away.
Brain tanning uses emulsified oils, often from deer, cattle or buffalo brains, and the leather is known for being soft and washable.
In this Pioneer PBS profile, Dakota artist Walter "Super" LaBatte Jr. explains how he makes brain-tan buckskin from deer hides. It shows the traditional method described above; it does not cover the commercial sheepskin "buckskin" sold today.
Is buckskin actually tanned?
Sources disagree. Wikipedia's leather article lists brain-tanned leather, with buckskin as the example, among leather types. Horace Kephart's camping handbook (1957 edition) says genuine Indian-tanned buckskin is not tanned at all in the chemical sense; its fibers are broken up by working, then it is preserved with brain and smoke. Either way, it behaves differently from untreated rawhide.
Buckskin vs rawhide
Rawhide is untanned skin, mostly from buffalo, deer, elk or cattle. Left wet, rawhide softens and stretches quickly. Buckskin may stiffen a little as it dries after wetting, but rubbing it by hand makes it soft again. Smoke-tanned leathers also cope with wetting better than untanned skin.
How it compares with chamois and nubuck
Buckskin looks and feels like chamois leather, but it is stronger. Nubuck takes its name from "new buck", as it was first made from young deer hides. Clothing made from buckskin is called buckskins, often fringed to shed rain and dry faster.
Where to buy buckskin-style leather
No deerskin or buckskin is listed at Leather Collection. Since most modern "buckskin" is sheepskin, the closest match there is the Leather Collection men's leather jackets range. It offers sheepskin and lambskin styles, which drape more than cowhide, and each product page names the leather.
FAQ
Does deerskin make good leather?
Deerskin is used for soft leather in more expensive apparel and is widely used in work gloves and indoor shoes.
What is leather with fur called?
For sheep, a skin tanned with the fleece left on is called sheepskin. Other fur-on hides are covered in what hair-on leather is.
HitKB Editorial Team
HitKB articles are researched from published sources, cited in the text, and reviewed before publication.