Joshua Lyon/NYT WirecutterAlan Price, a furniture maker who has designed pieces for RH and Whittemore-Sherrill, told me that he doesn’t think nature is capable of making a bad hide, and other experts agreed. Unless a tannery is sneakily passing off a split as full- or top-grain leather, what’s good or bad about a piece of leather upholstery is somewhat subjective.That said, when hides arrive at a tannery, they are typically separated into different tiers. Smooth hides with few marks rise to the very top of the hierarchy and become the most expensive leathers. It’s typically a small percentage, because wrinkles, scratches, and bug bites are common.When a herd is packed too tightly, the skin can become riddled with excessive barbed-wire scratches. Hot weather and high humidity allow ticks to thrive, which can cause hundreds of dark bite marks, which some people consider unsightly.Hides with a lot of these types of skin damage are often slated for corrected-grain leathers. Although deep, open scratches could impact the natural fiber structure of the resulting leather, Sackett Wood, CEO of Moore & Giles, told me it’s uncommon.It’s unlikely for a tannery making upholstery to take a pristine piece of full-grain leather and cover it with multiple layers of synthetic finish; this means finding a leather that combines a blemish-free natural surface, top-strength durability, and a strong stain-resisting top coat isn’t typically in the cards. You need to decide what matters most for you.Scuffs on some leathers will “heal” with light rubbing. Joshua Lyon/NYT WirecutterHere are a few things to keep in mind to help you know what you’re actually getting when you shop:Retail price: “Leathers tend to be less expensive when the quality of the hide isn’t quite as good,” American Leather’s Whitney Tinsley said. “The cost is directly linked to the quality of the raw materials.” If a new leather sofa costs $1,000, for instance, there’s a chance that the hides might not be as durable due to their being heavily corrected.Conversely, a retailer might go all in on extolling the virtues of the many visible scratches and marks on a cheap sofa, but the extensive skin damage on the hide acts as a camouflage until you’re left with a couch that’s lost a lot of its looks and durability over time. “It has so many imperfections in it that you don’t notice when it gets more,” Jeff Frank, who writes and owns Insider’s Guide to Furniture, told me.The ability to “heal.” This isn’t a universal test for quality, but if you run a fingernail lightly against the surface of many pure-, full-, or semi-aniline leathers and massage the scuff with the pad of your finger to warm up the oils in and on the leather, they’ll redistribute color and the streak will fade significantly. On some occasions, completely, over time.This trick is useful when you’re examining leather swatches, but some full- or top-grain hides that have a stronger protective finish on them won’t do this, and the test isn’t useful for any kind of heavily corrected leather, since you’re just creating marks in paint.Panel size: Since every single hide absorbs soluble dye differently, it takes a professional to look at a pile of, say, 10 aniline hides and select the five that will best go together to form a seamless appearance. In contrast, if you encounter a cheap leather sofa with many small squares stitched together, that might mean the maker had to cut up the original hides in search of usable pieces.But as with all things leather, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. A high-end leather manufacturer might also sew smaller parts of a quality hide together for design purposes.Marketing terms: Historically a “100% leather” or “genuine leather” label has been a dead giveaway that the leather comes from a split or a damaged hide that the maker has sanded significantly, wearing away the grain, before embossing it and heavily treating it in an attempt to pass it off as quality leather. What’s underneath might technically be from an animal but will degrade quickly.Always ask for confirmation if you see a “100%” or “genuine” label, and if you see either descriptor without any specific leather type or treatment mentioned, move on.Consistency: A quality leather couch should contain the same type of high-grade leather throughout. A common tactic that manufacturers employ on cheap leather sofas is to “leather match,” in which they use top-grain leather only on the parts of a couch that are visible and most touched, such as the cushions and the tops of the arms, and pair it with faux or even bonded leather for the rest of the sofa. Companies typically divulge this information, but if you’re shopping at a discount furniture store like Ashley or Wayfair, it’s smart to ask.
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