What Is Waxed Leather? Synthetic Understanding About Waxed Leather

If you already have general understanding about normal leather, suede or buck leather, waxed leather may turn out to be familiar to you. Compare with other kinds of leather, wax leather is not such popular but it is attractive because it is unique, soft, highly aesthetic and durable. With our best knowledge, Babu Handmade would like to give you all understanding about waxed leather.

What is waxed leather? Guides to recognize waxed leather.

Generally speaking, wax is a kind of leather which is tanned with a chemical layer; normally, this layer is dissolved Chrome. After being tanned carefully, leather will be covered with a wax layer. Because of different using purpose, there will be many kinds of wax leather. It depends on the thickness of leather: much or little, dry or wet, thin or thick….

It is easy to recognize waxed leather. While normal leather is glossy, suede and buck leather have minor pores, waxed leather has rough surface, and it is easy to be scratched. A light scratch from fingernail can leave mark on the leather surface, but when you rub your finger to that mark, it disappears.

Waxed leather has typical smell compares with other kinds of leather and it has pores so it absorbs water easily.

Wax burns radiating smell of biscuit while other leather will has smell of burned hair.

Categories of waxed leather.

Currently, this special kind of leather is divided into 2 groups: wax non-sanded leather and wax milled leather.

Wax non-sanded leather: The grain surface is abraded to remove imperfections, a decorative grain pattern is then embossed into the surface. Or leather surface after being abraded can be remained, depending on using purpose.

Wax milled leather: On contrary to non-sanded wax leather, this kind of leather is remained intact, even the scars or insect-biting spots. Normally, this kind of leather is selected from animals (cow, horse …) whose skin is good-looking, if not, the leather will be used to make non-sanded wax leather or other kinds of leather.

Wax non-sanded leather has artificially even grain pattern.

Basically, in order to distinguish artificial pattern in wax non-sanded leather from natural grain pattern in wax milled leather is not difficult. Natural grain will not be evenly situated (pattern in belly, armpit and neck will have less grain), embossed pattern will be evenly located in entire leather.

Two above wax leathers can be divided into 2 different kinds: wet wax leather and dry wax leather. As its name, wet wax leather has grease surface, with large amount of wax on surface so it is heavy, its color is darker. If wet wax leather has scratches on it, just rub for a while, its original color will return. Regarding to dry wax leather, its surface appears to be more smooth, it is lighter, has less wax amount and less possibility of getting scratches compare with wet wax leather (but if gets scratches, it also can easily come back to original surface).

To be more detailed:

Wet wax leather: Its color will not be changed when you crush or fold, and it is considered common waxed leather.

If its color is changed and looks quite different from original status, and its surface is still rough, then the leather is crazy horse leather. It is not leather of a horse as it might be thought, it is completely cowhide and popular globally because it is novelty, unique and impressive…

Crazy horse leather

If we impact in the leather, its color changes but the surface is smoother, then the leather is oil wax leather. This kind of leather is lightly glossy but the leather is still get scratch easily. The leather can also change its color but it is less compare with crazy horse leather. However, it is popular to many people.

     Dry wax leather: this kind of leather is frequently mistaken to nubuck leather due to its similar appearance: rough surface, evenly colored and the color is unchanged. However, it gets scratches easily and has typical smell compare with buck leather.

Dry wax leather is divided into three kinds:

+ The most popular one is waxed buck leather, the combination between waxed leather and buck leather. Its velvet surface is smooth and light. Touching to its surface, we may feel it and nubuck leather are alike but it is completely lighter and all of its features belongs to waxed leather. Waxed buck leather has low possibility of getting scratch and its surface has high absorbency ability. And as it belongs to buck leather type, it is mistaken easily. Waxed buck leather is used to make shoes and worn together with jean.

+ The next one is also crazy horse leather but is the dry one. Its color can be changed dramatically but it is lighter, has rough surface like wet leather but it is smoother than wet leather.

+ The third types is waxed pull-up leather, the smooth level is same as oil waxed leather, and color change ability is weaker than crazy horse leather. This kind of leather is the impressive combination of waxed leather and pull-up leather to improve the color durability. Therefore, compare with pull-up leather, this leather kind has impressive color durability. In some places, pull-up leather is considered oil waxed leather, but to distinguish each other, we call dry waxed leather as pull-up leather, waxed pull-up leather as oil leather.

Advantages and disadvantages of wax leather.

    Advantages: it is visible that waxed leather demonstrates personality and brings about unique value for the product that you use. It has high durability, especially, the more scratches it gets, the more beautiful it becomes. So that you need not to bother if your product bumps a lot. One more interesting feature is that the longer you use your leather products, the more polish and glossy the products will become.

      Disadvantages: because of its scratch-prone feature, many people don’t like it. Compare with other kind of leather, waxed leather looks aged because of wax layer on surface. Besides, this kind of leather gets mold easily in humid environment and is not kept in right way. Moreover, due to wax layer, it spreads color to clothes. However it can be removed when washed, many people find it discomfort. Wax layer makes it difficult for paint layer to stick long. Therefore, this leather type is often gummed or has it edge remained. Rough surface can easily covered by dirt but it also becomes polished easily.

Guides for waxed leather care and cleaning

If you have a wardrobe to store leather items, it is advisable to put waxed leather items aside so that color will not stick to wax layer and vice versa. Remember to use a clean and dry tower to remove dirt on leather after using. Putting leather in dry place, avoid direct exposure to sun, as well as moisture from the ground and the wall. If leather is moldy, you should use glass cleaner to spray on it, then use a wet tower to clean in spiral line at moldy position, then leave it in dry place so that it will dry gradually, do not dry or expose it to the sun. As high temperature possibly makes leather dried and brittle, you must not leave leather in high temperature environment. If the leather is seriously moldy, the above method can be useful, remember to use 2 brushes for 2 sides of the product.

So as to have better maintenance, you should put crumpled paper inside leather product, it helps to remove moisture and maintain form. Avoid rain or water as it absorbs water well. If it gets wet by incident, remember to dry and leave it in rough place to avoid mold.

Whatever the leather might be, it is not perfect and durable forever. Waxed leather gets mold easily and has ordour, so we need to have a good care for it. After this article, Babu hopes to provide you useful piece of information about this type of leather, therefore you can preserve your leather items better. In case you want to have further understanding about leather or Babu’s products, feel free to contact us.