Is Vegan Leather Any Good?

When you are looking into buying a leather item such as a jacket, belt, shoes, or sofa, you will find a lot of different wording to describe the material, in recent years there is a fancy material marketed as "vegan leather" that is often listed as animal friendly.

While this it is true that vegan leather is animal friendly in the sense that there are no animal cruelty involved in the production of the material, it is also true that vegan leather is mostly made with PVC and PU (including Piñatex). The vegan leathers that are made entirely of plants are nice, but they just aren't strong enough, so realistically they can't be the base material for furniture, shoes, belts, and even bags, or at least not if you want the items to last a while.

Vegan Leather Pros

1. Vegan leather is cheaper to produce, so if you are looking to save some money, the lower price tag can be very appealing.

2. Vegan leather for the most part looks pretty good and on some levels comparable to real leather.

Vegan Leather Cons

1. Vegan leather is not as strong as real leather, not even a fraction of it, and plastics start peeling after continuous rubbing. A real leather sofa will last a lot longer than a vegan leather sofa.

2. Vegan leather is much more toxic than real leather. Plastics are toxic and dangerous for our health. There is too much plastic in our everyday lives, and there are some studies suggesting that plastics contribute to the fall of male fertility rates in the past few decades. Watch some interesting videos on the topic here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jQsaKJf3ic

and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-kSxHNSDQ

It probably isn't very healthy to sit on a vegan leather sofa, or wear a vegan leather jacket, just having those huge toxic objects around is probably not good for you at all.

If you don't like leather because it comes from animals that were killed, you can buy cotton items, cotton is natural, a non-irritant, that is a classic and looks great. Vegan leather is PVC and PU pretending to be leather.

Our verdict: Just buy a great quality item made of real natural materials and be happy. If you don't like leather, you don't need the leather look either, and if you like leather, buy real leather rather than trying to save a few bucks.