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HalfysReddit t1_ix696fp wrote

Yes but if the best thing you can say about your product is it meets the legal criteria for being called leather, it brings to question why that would be your selling point.

There are grades of leather, and yes you could call them all genuine, in practice anything advertised as "genuine leather" instead of "top grain leather" or "full grain leather" is just meeting the minimum legal standard for calling itself leather.

You can definitely make a product that is 99% cardboard and plastic and 1% animal hide and call it genuine leather. Pretty much every cheap fast-fashion belt I've ever seen was built this way.

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nstarleather t1_ix6aphb wrote

Actual labeling laws won’t let you label a mostly plastic product “leather” the worst leather you’ll see called “genuine” (if they’re not breaking the law) will be something called a “finished split” which is basically painted suede.

Calling each type of leather a grade is actually the biggest myth in the industry. You can't contact a tannery to buy "genuine leather" as a specific thing.

All leather is Genuine, all leather that's not suede (bottom split) is top grain and top grain that hasn't been sanded (corrected) is full grain. The terms encompass one another.

The breakdown you sometimes see calling genuine, top grain and full grain grades is actually more like: "This is the worst you can expect with each of these terms in the description"...but unfortunately people have taken it as each term being a separate distinct type of leather which from an industry standpoint is simply not true; you can't call up a tannery and buy "genuine leather". So it's entirely possible for a company to say "genuine leather" in their brief description and then say top grain or full grain (and even more descriptors) when you click further (this was the case with an Article couch I bought).

There are also makers in other categories that use it just to separate it from synthetic Red Wing is a good example with an excellent reputation and they actually own a tannery: https://imgur.com/a/Tdtbjge

The “quick and dirty” full grain>top grain>genuine really only applies when you can’t find more info about the tannery or company making the item. There are top grain leathers and even suedes that come from top tier tanneries that I’d take any day over “full grain” cheap tanneries making leather for some of the big “fashion”brands.

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