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When buying a sofa, leather shoes, or bag, do you often hear merchants say "this is genuine leather", but the skin starts to peel and crack within a few days after you get it home? Spending the price of real leather, but buying PU or artificial leather materials will make anyone angry. Today we will fully explain genuine leather and various artificial materials, so that you will never be misled when buying things in the future.
Genuine leather is the natural skin peeled off from animals such as cows, sheep, and pigs. After processing, the fiber structure of the animal skin itself is retained. If you look closely at the side of the leather, you will see a layer of densely packed and irregularly interlaced fibers, just like felt. PU or artificial leather is a layer of plastic applied on top of cloth or non-woven fabric. From the side, you can clearly see that the two layers are adhered together. The bottom is the texture of the cloth and the top is the plastic layer. This so-called "base" is a very obvious sign of artificial materials.
Regenerated leather sounds like real leather, but in fact it is made by crushing the residue and dander left over from the production of real leather, grinding it into powder, and then adding glue to press it. You can still see the base of this thing, and after breaking it open, the cross-section is extremely uniform, unlike real leather, where the fibers are messy. Filmed leather is even more outrageous. Its bottom layer is indeed the fleshy layer of real leather, but there is a layer of artificial film on the surface. Merchants sometimes call it "genuine leather", but in fact this can only be regarded as half-truth.
When you go to a furniture store or shoe store, don't just listen to what the salesperson says, touch it yourself. Real leather is warm to the touch and soft in texture. It feels quite comfortable to the touch and will not feel cold when touched in winter. However, this is not the case with so-called PU and artificial leather. When you place your hand on it, you can clearly feel that the plastic feels extremely strong and slightly slippery. In winter, it will feel cool to the touch, just like touching a plastic bag.
There is another little trick here. Use your thumb to press the surface of the skin hard. The area where the dermis is under pressure will generate many small, fragmented lines around it. These lines are extremely uniform. When you lift your hand, these lines will disappear on their own and the leather surface will return to its original appearance. However, if you press the artificial leather, it will either have no lines at all, or there will be very thick, unnatural-looking cracks. The lines will still exist after you lift your hand, which means that the surface film has separated from the material underneath. Do not buy products made of this material.
This method is extremely easy, you don’t need any tools, just get close and smell it. Genuine leather is derived from animals, and it will more or less have a hint of animal smell. Some of the more properly processed leather will have a faint smell of leather, but it will definitely not have a pungent chemical smell. The imported top-grain cowhide sofas you saw at the 2025 Guangzhou Furniture Fair smell very natural.
However, artificial leather is not like this. Its main component is polyurethane or PVC plastic. In addition, various plasticizers and stabilizers are added, and it will smell like a distinct plastic or rubber smell. There are some cheap shoes and bags. Once you open the package, the smell will hit your nostrils and it will be difficult to dissipate after leaving it for a long time. They are basically made of artificial leather. Regenerated leather sometimes adds fragrance to cover up the smell of glue, but if you smell it carefully you can still smell the sour glue smell.
Purely natural genuine leather causes each piece of leather to show completely different textures. The pores of cowhide appear in small clusters, and their arrangement is irregular. However, sheepskin has finer pores. If you look carefully, you can see some natural shapes on the surface of genuine leather. Scars caused by mosquito bites, or veins, these phenomena are all normal, but have become the unique signs of genuine leather. The reason why those leather sofas that cost tens of thousands of dollars are sold at high prices is because they use high-quality leather embryos with fewer disabilities.
As far as artificial leather is concerned, it is much neater. Its texture is pressed by a machine. The texture of the entire leather surface is exactly the same, very regular, as if it were copied. Some high-imitation PUs are specially made to look like pores. However, if you take a look with a magnifying glass, it will be obvious. The pores are the same size, with the same spacing, and are arranged neatly. At first glance, they look fake. Next time you go to the mall, compare two different shoes and you'll be able to tell the difference right away.
This method is most suitable when buying shoes. You turn the shoe over and look at the cut surface of the edge of the shoe collar. You will see densely packed fibers with different directions in the genuine leather, similar to torn cotton. And if you scrape the cut surface with your fingernail, you can scrape off some broken leather fibers. After scraping, the cut surface will not change significantly and it will still look rough.
The cut surface of artificial leather is much cleaner. You can clearly see the cloth base layer and the plastic layer. There is a clear boundary between the two layers. If you pick it with your fingernails, you can pull up the entire plastic film on the surface, or you can pull off a thin layer of plastic skin and completely expose the cloth base. The cut surface of the regenerated leather is more fake, even and fiber-free like a compressed board. If you pick it with your fingernails, it will leave a mark and will not rebound.
Some businesses on the market are playing word games and calling film leather "cow leather" or "genuine leather". However, in fact, this kind of thing is not considered genuine leather. National standards have a clear definition of genuine leather, which must be processed from natural animal skins. Foil leather is a layer of artificial film pasted on top of the fleshy surface of the leather. Its surface performance depends entirely on that film. Once the film breaks after being used for a long time, the underlying dermal fibers will be exposed, which is extremely ugly.
There is an item called "PU leather" or "microfiber leather", which sounds like it is related to leather, but actually has nothing to do with animal skin. Although microfiber leather feels quite good, and some are even softer than real leather, its essence is still plastic and has poor breathability. In the summer, when you sit on it, your buttocks will be covered with sweat. A test report in 2024 pointed out that one-third of the products on the market labeled as "genuine leather" are actually compounded with artificial layers, so when you check the label, you must pay attention to the words "first-layer cowhide" and "first-layer sheepskin."
After reading this article, you should now know how to distinguish between real leather and artificial leather? Next time you go shopping for a sofa or leather shoes, will you use the methods you learned today to inspect the goods? Welcome to share your past experiences of being scammed in the comment area, or tell us what other tips you want to know about identifying authenticity. If you get a lot of likes, I will write a detailed article next time. If you find it useful, remember to forward it to your friends so that they don’t waste their money.
