With the use of sustainable materials as the production premise, we will create and produce fashion products such as apparel and footwear. Water-based leather, vegan leather, recycled leather, and water-based microfiber have become hot words that consumers and brand owners pay close attention to.
Products closely related to fashion are all associated with leather. But genuine leather cannot meet the supply of every brand in the world, and the Animal Protection Association does not allow excessive animal killing. The traditional artificial leather production process produces a lot of toxic and harmful substances, and the product itself also contains harmful substances, which affects the health of consumers.
Through the fashion evaluation agency and Google search, the shopping data of 1 billion consumers from December 2019 to October 2020 was investigated, and many sustainable brands and products were studied, and keywords that changed current consumption behaviour were studied. It advocates “protecting our planet and the future of mankind when designing, creating and wearing clothing”, thinking deeply about the survival rights of other species, and proposing that “slow fashion” has gradually become the focus of fashion consumers.
Maybe many people don’t understand the meaning of these “hot words”, and they don’t know how these words are related to sustainable development. KAIYUE TECH- The waterborne leather explorer, provides some professional knowledge for everyone.
The full name of water-based leather is water-based polyurethane synthetic leather. It is a synthetic leather prepared from water-based polyurethane polymer materials and does not contain toxic organic solvents. It is the latest replacement of traditional solvent-based synthetic leather and a product that conforms to the sustainable development of the world. There is no pollution in the production process, no toxic and harmful waste gas and wastewater discharge. It does not contain DMFa, DMFu, o-benzenes, PAHs, APEO, azo, BPA, formaldehyde, heavy metals and other harmful chemicals. It is healthy and environmentally friendly, and truly harmless to the body. It can meet the latest environmental protection standards of the EU/UK and the United States, and meet the highest environmental protection requirements for synthetic leather at home and abroad.
1. Using water-based leather is equivalent to protecting the environment
2. Using water-based leather can maintain ecological balance
3. The use of water-based leather can reduce environmental pollution
For details, please refer to our previous KAIYUE articles. Why is water-based PU leather sustainable?
Vegan Leather is a new term derived from the development of the times. As the name suggests, it refers to animal-friendly leather. The materials and production process of these leathers are 100% free of animal ingredients. And animal footprints, such leather can be called vegan leather. So water-based leather belongs to vegan leather, but not all vegan leather is water-based leather.
For details, please refer to our previous KAIYUE articles. What is vegan leather? Vegan Leather VS Faux Leather
In fact, recycled leather is not the literal meaning that everyone thinks, and it does not mean that it can be reproduced and used again.
Recycled leather is mean to change the base fabric to use recycled fabric to achieve recycling. To understand this meaning, you may need to understand the composition of water-based synthetic leather.
As shown in the figure above, the water-based synthetic leather is composed of the base fabric, the adhesive layer, foam layer and the surface layer. Recycled leather means replacing the base fabric with recycled fabric. Recycled fabric is made of recycled fabric or canned silk. (Such as recycled polyester and nylon with GRS certification)
Water-based microfiber synthetic leather is referred to as water-based microfiber for short. It belongs to high-end water-based leather. Microfiber synthetic leather is developed on the basis of fully analyzing natural leather. Its structure is similar to that of natural leather, and its characteristics even surpass that of natural leather. . With extremely excellent wear resistance, excellent cold resistance, breathability, and ageing resistance, it is praised and favoured by big-name leather designers at home and abroad.
The reason why microfiber synthetic leather is close to or even better than real leather in performance is that it mimics the three-dimensional structure of real leather to a large extent. On the one hand, this three-dimensional interpenetrating structure relies on the ultrafine fibres after fibre opening, and on the other hand, it relies on the filling of resin to form a skeleton. As shown below
The left picture shows the microfiber structure, the right picture shows the cowhide structure
For details, please refer to our previous KAIYUE articles. What is the core technology of waterborne microfiber?
