What is microfiber leather?

1、What  is microfiber leather?

Microfiber leather is a result of a technologically advanced manufacturing technique that involves combining Microfiber and PU to create a durable leather alternative. Microfiber is 30% less impactful on the environment compared to animal leathers in water usage, eutrophication and global warming. In addition to being more friendly to the environment, Micro-Fiber also contains several wonderful properties that animal leather lacks, such as: 

• Real leather feel

• Excellent hydrolysis resistance, aging resistance

• Outstanding abrasion resistance, high tear strength, tensile strength and flexing endurance etc

• Very good uniformity, high dimensional stability, easy cutting and sewing

• Anti-bacteria, anti-odour

• Excellent chemical properties

• Lightness

• Breathability, water repellency

• Eco-friendly

• Washable

• Injectable

• More

Microfiber leather or pu microfiber leather is made of  polyamide fiber and polyurethane. the  polyamide fiber  is the base of the microfiber leather,

and the polyurethane is coated on the surface of  polyamide fiber . below picture for your reference

the base is without grain,just like the base of the genuine leather,hand feeling is very soft.

the surface pu can be embossed with differents kinds of grains and colors,so it can be widely used for many kinds of leather products,

such as car seat cover,handbag,furniture,packaging,shoes lining,wallets and so on.

2、Choose microfiber leather or leather?

After clearing about the basic concept, let’s do some contrasts to the microfiber and genuine leather:

Apperance: The microfiber is very close to genuine leather ( most of them are made by imitation leather). But when we compare carefully,the pores in genuine leather are much more clear, the texture in it is much more natureal; But microfiber is made by artificial skin with no pores and the texture is more consistent.And also, the low-end microfiber may has the plastic sense of touching.

Weight: The proportion weight of genuine leather is 0.6 in general, while for microfiber is about 0.3-0.5 in general. That is to say, in the same condition, microfiber is much lighter than the genuine leather. For example,two bags with the same size and same apperance,we can distinguish them by the weight in hand. The genuine leather bag is much heavier than the microfiber bag.

Smell: Genuine leather is made by animal skin, so it will have a peculiar smell, even a bit. And it will tend to a stimulating smell, if the formaldehyde, heavy metal exceeds bid in the process of making. The smell of the microfiber is less. But if it is low-end microfiber, there may be a stronger plastice smell.

Property: Both of microfiber and genuine leather have good practical property. Microfiber may be more abrasive and genuine leather will be more comfortable and ventilate. Of course both of them can reach a certain amount of balance in comprehensive property.

Draw Materials: Genuine leather is restricted by the size of animal skins and the content is uneven. But microfiber is more convenient, ant it has a stable quality and property.

Price: Generally, genuine leather (full grain leather) would be more expensive than microfiber, and the price for it will change by the supply and demand. However, some of the top microfiber has the best technology, so it will be more expensive than genuine leather. And it is used in high-end applications.

3、Choose microfiber leather or PU leather?

The price difference. The general price range of ordinary PU in the market is lower than microfiber leather.

The performance of the surface layer is different. Although the surface layers of both microfiber and the ordinary PU are polyurethane resins, but the ordinary PU that has been popular for many years, so ordinary PU has much more colors and styles than the microfiber leather. On the other hand, generally speaking, the polyurethane resin of microfiber leather has stronger abrasion resistance, acid and alkali resistance, hydrolysis resistance than the ordinary PU, also the color fastness and texture are better than ordinary PU.

The base material is different. Ordinary PU is with knitted fabric or woven fabric or non-woven fabric as the base fabric, then coated with polyurethane resin. The microfiber leather is with a three-dimensional structure of microfiber nonwoven fabric as the base fabric, then coated with high-performance polyurethane resin.

Different performance. Microfiber leather is much better than ordinary PU in terms of abarasion resistance, moisture absorption, comfort and other performance indicators etc.

Market prospects. The competition of ordinary PU market is very fierce because of the excess capcity and low technical thresholdand. On the other hand, because of the high technical threshold and the limited capacity and high performance, the microfiber leather is increasingly recognized by consumers, so there is a large market for growth.