From nytimes.com
By Ivy Elrod
Years ago, I spilled an entire pot of coffee on a turquoise dining chair upholstered in Ultrasuede, a fake leather. I blotted furiously at the chair with a dish towel before realizing I had no need to panic. The material had not absorbed a single drop.
Ultrasuede and other fake leathers are engineered to mimic the look of animal hide, but they function like performance fabrics, offering durability, colourfastness, and — as I witnessed that day — superior cleanability.
And they’ve come a long way from the sticky, peeling pleather diner booth seats you might remember. If you’ve shopped for a sofa or armchair recently, you’ve likely encountered a dizzying array of fake leathers.
For now, most of the fake leather you’ll encounter when shopping for furniture is still made from plastic polymers. But that’s starting to change. Besides petroleum-based synthetic leathers, there are also bio-based leathers, which contain some percentage of plant material, as well as bio-fabricated leathers, which are grown in a lab, said Theanne Schiros, a professor of materials science at the Fashion Institute of Technology and a Columbia University research scientist. Many fake leathers advertise that they’re vegan or sustainable, or they highlight their apple, cactus, or mushroom origin.
Below, we break down these three kinds of fake leather, how to choose the best one for your needs, and why you might want to opt for fake leather over real leather in the first place.
Most mass-market fake leather is still plastic
If you’re shopping for fake leather from a big furniture company, chances are it’s synthetic, meaning it’s probably made of either petroleum-based PVC (vinyl) or polyurethane (PU). A number of sofas that we recommend in our sleeper sofa guide and in our shopping guide to leather sofas are available in synthetic leather upholstery options. These fake leathers are typically the least expensive type available. While you can find some synthetic leathers at very low prices, higher-quality ones are priced somewhere between a performance fabric and an entry-grade leather.
Synthetic leathers are known for being durable, easy to clean, and resistant to staining. Some also offer qualities that real leathers usually don’t provide, such as UV protection, bleach cleanability, and improved breathability — like some styles of Ultraleather by Ultrafabrics, which is why you might find Ultraleather in the premium seating at Major League Baseball stadiums.
Unlike animal-hide leather, synthetic leathers don’t develop a patina over time. I’ve seen 20-year-old synthetic leather furniture that looks virtually the same as the day it was bought. The trade-off is that it won’t take on the character of a time-worn leather. Whether you think that’s a good or bad thing comes down to personal preference.
I have yet to encounter a synthetic leather that has tricked me, but they can be supple and recall real leather. Still, their handfeel varies widely depending on their material and treatment. For example, Ultrasuede, a distinct company from Ultrafabrics (and an upholstery option for the American Leather Gaines Comfort Sleeper, our top-pick sleeper sofa), has a smooth, napped texture that’s reminiscent of real suede, if with a slightly microfiber quality. Ultraleather is soft and resistant to creasing but, to me, still retains a tell-tale plastic feel.
The best way to know if you like how the synthetic leather feels is by ordering samples. I suggest requesting the largest size available, since standard 4-by-4-inch samples may be too small to give you a real sense of the material.
Instead of relying solely on tiny 4-by-4-inch pieces, request larger swatches. You’ll get a much better sense of the material’s feel. Ivy Elrod/NYT Wirecutter
There are also some more-technical specs to keep in mind. To ensure that the upholstery you choose will last for years, look for a rub count of more than 15,000 for home use; this number indicates how many times an abrasive material can be rubbed against a fabric until its fibres start to break.
You might encounter a hydrolysis rating, which means the product has been tested in high heat and humidity for peeling. Look for a rating of at least five weeks if you live in a humid climate, like Florida.
You might also want to look for Oeko-Tex Standard 100, a voluntary certification that indicates the textile has been independently tested and found to have low enough levels of certain chemicals and substances as to be free of potential harm. And a Greenguard Gold certification means the product has been independently verified to limit certain volatile organic compounds and chemical emissions, including formaldehyde, which can impact indoor air quality.
Bio-based leathers cut back on plastic — but are more expensive
Although synthetic leathers don’t use any animal products, they are primarily plastic. Bio-based leathers, also known as plant-based leathers, incorporate some percentage of plants into their makeup — often waste from the food industry, like apple, grape skins, cactus, or banana — which cuts back on the amount of plastic in the final product. But, at least for the time being, they still require additives to bind or coat the plant material.
Most bio-based leathers indicate the percentage of their plant-based content on their label; if it’s not listed, check the website. Look for the BioPreferred label, which certifies that the material contains a minimum of 25% content of biological origin, but note that a higher percentage doesn’t necessarily translate to better quality as upholstery, since synthetic binders are usually necessary to prevent plant fibres from cracking over time.
This category remains relatively rare for upholstery, though it is becoming more common. Sabai, whose sofas we recommend, offers one cactus-based “bio-based PU” upholstery, Desserto, with 61% bio content, a high 75,000 rub count (compared with the 30,000 minimum I recommend for home use with kids and pets), and stain resistance. Desserto is also more breathable than some other bio-based leathers.
As with synthetic leathers, preferences are highly personal, and bio-based leathers can vary widely in how they look and feel. Some do not feel convincingly leather-like to me, while others —such as Banofi, with 97% plant-based content (including banana crop waste and natural rubber) — feel very leather-like, indeed. I highly recommend ordering samples or assessing the upholstery in person before committing.
Bio-based leathers tend to be more expensive than synthetic ones, and they are more commonly available for higher-end furniture (sofas around $4,000 and above). That’s because developing biodegradable biopolymers is expensive, said Preeti Arya, associate professor of textile development and marketing at FIT, in a phone interview. Fully synthetic leathers are more economically viable — at least for now.
But completely plastic-free bio-fabricated leathers are the rarest and priciest of the bunch. These fake leathers are grown in a lab, like those made from mycelium (such as Ecovative Forager and MycoWorks Reishi), and they’re currently available only in limited luxury markets (in the past, I’ve spotted them on items from Hermès and Ligne Roset).
Bio-fabricated leathers are known for their softness and similarity to the texture and feel of real leather — and, excitingly for leather lovers, for their ability to patina. So far, their weaker tensile strength and durability has been an Achilles’ heel. While these textiles represent an ideal future for lower-impact textiles, they remain a “wait and see” for the average shopper.
| A beginner’s guide to shopping for fake leather | |
| What do you want? | Look for: |
| Cleanability and stain resistance | ✓ terms like:
|
| Durability | ✓ double-rub rating of 30,000 or more ✓ hydrolysis rating of at least five weeks |
| Lasting colour | ✓ colourfastness rating of 4 or above |
| Chemical transparency | ✓ a voluntary third-party certification, such as:
|
| Less plastic material | ✓ a bio content percentage of at least 25% or a BioPreferred certification ✓ a natural fibre backing |
Besides helping you decide if you like the look and feel of an upholstery, the back of swatches can contain helpful information on durability and material content. Ivy Elrod/NYT Wirecutter
Why go fake?
If you’re looking for cleanability, durability, and colourfastness at a more accessible price point, synthetic leathers might be an obvious choice over animal-hide leather. And if you’re opposed to buying any animal products, the choice to go fake is obvious.
But if you’re wondering if fake leather is sustainable or better for the environment than the real stuff, it’s more complicated.
If you’re just focused on reducing petroleum-based products and plastic waste, real leather beats most synthetic leather, and bio-based leather helps cut back to varying degrees, depending on the percentage of plant-based content that they contain. But zoom out beyond plastic, and the idea that vegan leather is inherently better for the planet is a misconception, both Schiros and Arya told me.
The debate often hinges on whether you view a cowhide as a primary product or a salvaged one. Cowhides come primarily from the beef industry; in theory, they’re a waste product. Because of this, some life cycle assessments could attribute a lower environmental burden to leather than to fake leather alternatives, said Joël Mertens, director of Higg Product Tools at the global non-profit Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition), where he leads the development of standardized metrics to evaluate the environmental impact of textiles, with a focus on supply-chain transparency. A high-quality top-grain leather is also durable and can last decades, lowering its environmental impact over the years it’s in use.
But both the beef industry and leather carry a heavy environmental burden in the form of land and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and chemical pollution from chrome tanning. In fact, one of the highest-impact ways to cut back on your carbon footprint is to eat less meat and dairy.
With alternative leather, the burden moves downstream. We trade animal agriculture for other environmental burdens, including (for most fake leathers) plastic waste, petrochemical use, and other chemical pollutants. Newer bio-based fabrics are a step in the right direction, but some have as low as just 10% bio-based content and may not be inherently lower impact than leather from a life cycle perspective, according to the experts I spoke with.
At the moment, most of the fake leather available is still made from plastic, at least to some degree. As with any upholstery, choosing the best one comes down to balancing your values and personal preferences, your budget, and your needs, so you can enjoy it and use it for as long as possible.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/what-is-vegan-leather/
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