Vegetable Tanned Leather | TheBaliCurator

Vegetable Tanned Leather

Conventional chrome-tanned leather is highly criticized, because of the negative, environmental impact of the tanning process. Our founders experienced the negative impact of the chrome tanning process first hand and saw the very poor working conditions of the people working in these chrome tanneries when they visited Magetan in East Java in 2018. Luckily, during the same visit, they also met mr. Hartono. He and his family own a small leather tannery and produce vegetable tanned leather.

Vegetable tanned leather is real cow leather, tanned in a bath with water and acacia wood. The oils in the bark of the wood do the tanning work, as opposed to harsh synthetic chemicals that are used with chrome-tanning. The vegetable tanned leather can be dyed with synthetic dyes or with natural dyes. Please note that when the leather is dyed with natural dyes, the leather will dry out more quickly. Therefore it is important to treat the natural dyed leather well, we recommend using bees wax.

We supply three different qualities of vegetable tanned leather. A cheaper quality that is suitable for lining, premium quality and special quality. The difference between the premium and special quality is that the premium leather may vary slightly in thickness.. If you order a 1.5mm premium quality, your sheet may vary from 1.3 - 1.7mm. Whereas for the special quality the thickness will be made even over the whole sheet. The special quality is also coated with an extra protection layer. Please note that natural dyes cannot be applied on this coating. If you plan to have your leather dyed with natural dyes, please request the leather to come without coating.

The following leathers are currently available in our office:

'Madura' 1.6mm

Premium 1.1mm

Premium 1.5mm

Premium 2.0mm

Premium 3.0mm

Special 1.1mm

If you are looking for a different thickness, we can do a custom order. The MOQ (minimum order quantity) for a sample is 1 sheet (approx. 30ft), the MOQ for production is 200ft (1ft is 25cm x 25cm). The leather will come undyed, or dyed with synthetic dyes. If you would like to have the leather dyed with natural dyes, we will refer you to or natural dye partner in Bali.

Please get in touch through enquiry@thebalicurator.com if you would like to order a sample pack of the leather (Rp. 150.000 excl shipping costs) or if you would like to make an appointment to visit our office to see and feel the leather. If you are not in Bali, it is also possible for us to ship leather swatches to you.

Next to supplying leather, we can also help with production management for your leather goods.

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